British Idealism:

A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED

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Utilitarianism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Krister Bykvist

British Idealism:
A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
David Boucher and Andrew Vincent

Continuum International Publishing Group

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David Boucher and Andrew Vincent 2012
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ISBN: 978-0-8264-9677-5 (hardcover)

978-0-8264-9678-2 (paperback)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Boucher, David, 1951British idealism: a guide for the perplexed / David Boucher and
AndrewVincent.
p. cm. (Guides for the perplexed)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-8264-9677-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-8264-9678-2 (pbk.)
1.Idealism, British. I. Vincent, Andrew. II. Title.
B1616.I5B68 2011
141.0941dc23
2011016506

Typeset by Amnet International, Dublin, Ireland

Printed and bound in India

To Clare and Mary

Contents

Acknowledgements

viii

Introduction

Chapter One: The Coming of British Idealism

Chapter Two: Absolute Idealism and its Critics

38

Chapter Three: Monism and Modality

57

Chapter Four: Political and Ethical Philosophy

76

Chapter Five: Idealism as a Practical Creed

102

Chapter Six: Nationality, Imperialism and

International Relations

130

Notes

155

Bibliography

178

Further Reading

189

Index

193

vii

Acknowledgements

The authors have, for more years than either wishes to acknowledge,
been engaged in common endeavours as friends, colleagues and collaborators. We have contributed to that wider movement of scholars,
spanning several continents, who despite being dismissed as necromancers of the philosophy of the day before yesterday, have established the place of British Idealism in contemporary political
thought. We warmly welcome this opportunity offered to us by Tom
Crick, if not to dispel completely the perplexities of understanding
the Idealists, at least to make them a little less mysterious and a little
more intelligible to the uninitiated. In this endeavour, we hope that
we will escape the unkind remark bestowed upon James Hutchison
Stirling when he was purported to have revealed the secret of Hegel.
We will be relieved if it cannot be said of us that if the authors have
discovered the secret of the British Idealists, they have kept it uncommonly well.
Our debts are considerable, not least to our contemporaries, and to
the younger generation of scholars who have seen much to value and
extol in British Idealism. They are too numerous to mention, but our
gratitude to them is limitless. This community of scholars would be
far less than it is and much impoverished if it were not for the personal inspiration and stimulus of the examples of the late W. H.
Greenleaf and Alan Milne. Raymond Plant, Rex Martin and Peter
Nicholson continue to contribute to promoting the study of British
Idealism. To Peter we owe a special debt of gratitude for once again
demonstrating his generosity of spirit in reading through and commenting on the chapters in this book. It goes without saying that the
infelicities that remain are our sole responsibility.
David Boucher and Andrew Vincent
Cardiff University, Sheffield University
viii

Introduction

Idealism is a much-maligned word. In ordinary language, it is pejoratively labelled unrealistic, or unduly optimistic. Philosophical
Idealism has nothing to do with the ordinary sense of Idealism. It is
not about ideals, or utopias, but about ideas and particularly consciousness. Consciousness cannot be separated from the reality of
which it is conscious. In other words, the mind is not a passive receptor of external stimuli, but an active element in constituting that very
reality of which it is conscious.
There are versions of Idealism to be found in Ancient Greece,
especially in Plato who posited a realm of immutable ideas or forms
outside of the transitory reality we experience. In its modern form, it
was influenced by Berkeley whose ideas were directed against materialism. Berkeley wished to reveal the ultimate spirituality of experience behind our sense impressions. Despite his scepticism, he was
convinced of one thing: the reality of the self in self-conscious activity.
Berkeleys subjective Idealism, which privileged the experiencing
self, was challenged by Hegel who began with the postulate that
experience is one indivisible whole, in which there is no sense of the
self until consciousness begins to differentiate the I from the Thou.
This is known as Absolute Idealism, which critics suggested is in
danger of consigning the self or the individual to oblivion. Berkeley
to some extent provided stimulus to the revolt against Absolute
Idealism by the so-called Personal Idealists or Personalists. They
maintained that finite selves, or individual people, whatever else they
may be, had to be central to any account of experience. The whole
cannot be understood except from the standpoint of the experiencing individual. While agreeing that everything is spiritual, the contention is that the content of spirit must be encompassed by a self.
The opposite of Absolute Idealism was not materialism but
Realism, which eventually proved to be its undoing. Oakeshott captures the essence of the dispute between Idealism and Realism when
1

British Idealism

he contends: Thus the driving force of Idealism is the belief that

the known cannot be independent of the knower; and the resistance of Realism is the belief that what is known must be an antecedent reality.1
All the forms of Idealism have at least one common element; they
refuse to acknowledge that the material process is the ultimate character of reality to the extent that reality is known or knowable.2
Idealism was not refuted, despite G. E. Moores extravagant claim
to the contrary; it was though frequently rebutted until such time the
key proponents were no longer alive to respond. However, there were
many lesser Idealists conducting a campaign of guerrilla warfare
against the likes of Bertrand Russell, John Cook Wilson, G. E.
Moore, Wittgenstein and Ayer well into the early twentieth century.
A younger generation of Idealists, principally R. G. Collingwood at
Oxford and Michael Oakeshott at Cambridge, also carried the banner well into the twentieth century, but understandably they were
often reluctant to be too ostentatious about proclaiming their allegiance. Indeed, Collingwood believed himself to have gone beyond
Idealism, especially in logic in that he rejected propositional logic
common to both Idealism and Realism in favour of a logic of question and answer, which ultimately rested on statements that were not
propositions.
The guiding principle of Idealism may be encapsulated in the following manner. All of reality, that is, all that is and appears, is for and
in consciousness. To suggest that there is anything outside this fundamental principle of consciousness is unintelligible or meaningless.
British Idealism by the end of the nineteenth century had taken
deep roots in the society because it fulfilled a number of social purposes. The consequences of rapid industrialization and the expansion
of world trade caused immense social and personal dislocation and
degradation for certain sectors of the society. Idealism was not merely
a philosophical movement, but primarily a reforming force. It counterbalanced the individualism of utilitarianism, offering a philosophy
that emphasized social cohesiveness, social justice and equality of
opportunity. It was a philosophy that emphasized social responsibility through the greatest of all social levellers, universal access to education. It was also a philosophy that stood out against the degradation
of man and God in naturalistic theories of evolution. Nature and
Spirit were integrally and inextricably related. Spirit was the potential
in Nature, and Nature was intelligible only to Spirit or Mind. For
2

INTRODUCTION

many of the British Idealists, poetry, religion and philosophy were at

times indistinguishable; each offered the same insights through different routes into ultimate reality, the Absolute, Spirit or God. For many,
God was present in the development of freedom in the world and
expressed Himself through individual lives.
At a time of obscene social exploitation, appalling working conditions and disregard for safety, escalating levels of drunkenness and
rampant and virulent disease, the consequence of unimaginable
social squalor, British Idealism was an intensely moralistic and
judgemental philosophy. It condemned all social evils, including the
evils of drink, as impediments to self-realization, that is, to the realization of what is potential in oneself as a worthwhile human being.
It advocated the removal of everything that hindered this attainment. The role of the state inall this was to ensure that the obstacles
to self-realization were removed.
While most British Idealists were committed liberals, they nonetheless advocated the right kind of socialism, which eschewed class
antagonism and emphasized social responsibility. The criterion for
the extension of state activity always had to be the enabling of individuals to attain greater freedom. Thus, compulsory education did not
diminish the freedom of choice but actually enhanced the capacity
of individuals to develop their talents. British Idealism emphasized
both the responsibilities of individuals to seize the opportunities to
make themselves more virtuous, and of the owners of capital to act
responsibly by transforming their workshops from schools of vice
into schools of virtue.
Utilitarianism, in the view of the Idealists, was a philosophy incapable of accounting for, or encouraging social cohesiveness, because
of its failure to account for moral actions, which could not be simply
reduced to the pursuit of pleasure. Morality, for the Idealists, is fundamentally social, and acting morally necessarily means reciprocal
concern for others and not merely a desire to attain a private state of
mind, namely happiness or pleasure. Morality is equated with selfrealization, which, unlike pleasure, is the goal of moral action. Selfrealization is a moral duty. We have a duty to realize our best self.
British Idealists also associate self-realization with the common
good. The common good is viewed as unachievable apart from the
membership of a society,3 and the self that is to be realized through
moral activity is determined, characterised, made what it is by relation to others.4
3

British Idealism

British Idealism, as it crystallized in the 1870s, was unquestionably

something of a peculiarity in a culture characterized by an instinctive utilitarianism and the hard-edged empiricism of Thomas
Hobbes, David Hume and Jeremy Bentham. In many ways, after the
interlude of Idealism, a comparable form of empiricism and instinctive utilitarianism returned to prominence in Britain in the 1930s.
Empiricism, particularly in the shape configured by Bertrand Russell,
and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, pressed ethics virtually beyond
philosophical sense and appraisal into the realms of emotivism.
Moral judgements were seen as neither based on fact, nor capable of
being truthful. Morality thus had no position in the world of
Wittgensteins Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) or Alfred Jules
Ayers Language Truth and Logic (1936). This dismissive form of
argument was subsequently replaced by much more sophisticated
and morally sensitive forms of neo-Kantianism and consequentialism in the 1970s and 1980s. However, suffice it to say that British
Idealism nonetheless visibly and unequivocally generated a profound
and subtle interrogation of this utilitarian instinct from the 1870s up
to and during the early part of the twentieth century. It also precipitated a deep philosophical and practical reconsideration of the utilitarian instincts role in personal and public life, which shaped several
generations.
British Idealism was a social philosophy that exuded optimism at
a time of extreme social dislocation and pessimism. In summary, it
acted as a profound interrogation, critique and metaphysical counterbalance to the individualism of the variants of an instinctive
British utilitarianism and naturalistic evolutionism. It offered a philosophy that gave the much-needed orientation to social cohesiveness and to the closeness of the relation between individual and
collective responsibility. Its emphasis on the importance of active
social citizenship subsequently became an important theme in early
twentieth century politics and welfare theory. In this sense, Idealism
was a working philosophy, which certainly for a significant moment
in British cultural history set the course of moral and political thinking and delivered a resounding, if nonetheless temporary, rebuttal of
the utilitarian ethos.
British Idealism, in addition to being conceived in a turbulent
domestic world, contributed to the understanding and resolution of
problems in an uncertain and explosive external environment. The
age of Imperialism was at its height; jingoistic nationalism at its
4

INTRODUCTION

worst; and the willingness to go to war was at its peak during the
ascendancy of British Idealism. In all of these areas, the British
Idealists opposed the pernicious forms of the doctrines they were all
too often accused of supporting. Social Imperialism, premised on
exploitation, was abhorrent to them, but it was a fact that had to be
faced. Those nations enmeshed in the affairs of different and alien
cultures had a moral duty to elevate the lives of those individuals by
imparting to them the skills and abilities to achieve self-government
and attain a higher level of civilization. The British Idealists rejected
the forms of nationalism that were insular and inflammatory. The
nation, for them, was an ethical ideal and the sustainer of a moral
community. Yet, as the sinews that hold people together became
more extensive, the nation could be superseded by a higher and more
expansive moral community, until ultimately the whole world may
become our neighbour. War for them was not a necessary instrument
of policy, but the manifestation of the failure of states to fulfil their
purpose of enabling each individual to become the best he or she
can, which for them was necessarily a moral ideal.
In the chapters that follow, we setall of these aspirations and ideals
in the context of the real achievements of British Idealism in the
realms of philosophy, politics and social policy. These achievements
were to enrich the debate inall these areas with their emphasis upon
the spiritual reality of existence and the irreducible role of consciousness in conceiving of and responding to a reality that had no independent existence apart from the minds that know it. The optimism
exuded by the exponents of this philosophy cannot be overestimated.
It was always the human potential for good that they emphasized
and not the capacity for debasement and evil.
This book is therefore addressed to the reader who may have been
initially put off persevering to understand the British Idealists. For
some critics, it is the erroneous views of the British Idealists and for
others their impenetrable style and unfamiliar language, which act as
deterrents to a clear understanding of their work. It is indeed, for the
most part, the language and style of argument that is unusual to the
modern reader, especially among Anglo-American philosophers.
The strangeness of the language, and manner of argument, of the
British Idealists may easily be mistaken for obscurity if one does not
persevere, and one is unlikely to persevere if what one is reading
already has a poor reputation. British Idealism is not, however, completely alien to the modern world, having its roots in continental
5

British Idealism

philosophy and resonances with some contemporary thinkers such

as Richard Rorty, as well as modern constructivists. Ironically, such
British Idealists as R. G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott have
attained considerable contemporary popularity, without their admirers invoking their undeniable Idealist credentials.
What we are doing to allay perplexity in this book is to introduce
the reader to the full range of the British Idealists philosophy, elucidate their overall approach, explain and exemplify their main terms,
outline their general conclusions, and comment on the value of all
the foregoing issues. The book is distinctive in that it includes serious
discussion of the Idealists who carried its ideas forward into the middle and late twentieth century. We also make comparisons of more
recent writers with whom the reader is likely to feel more at home.
The principal claim is that if one gets behind the unfamiliar style
(which is only that, a style), then the British Idealists have interesting
and significant things to say and in some cases what they say may
contribute something of value to current discussions.

Chapter one

The Coming of British Idealism

British Idealism emerged slowly and intermittently over the course

of the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom, gaining momentum in the last quarter. Its most towering figures, T. H. Green,
Bernard Bosanquet and F. H. Bradley were all English. They were
born in Birkin, the West Riding of Yorkshire; in Alnwick,
Northumberland; and, in Clapham, London, respectively. Their
prominence has served to understate the extent to which Scotland
contributed to this philosophical tendency, and was indeed evangelical in spreading the news abroad to Canada, Australia and South
Africa. Among the Scottish Idealists Edward Caird, who succeeded
Benjamin Jowett as the Master of Balliol, Oxford is probably best
known. The movement was almost religious in its fervour and
counted among its members more than its fair share of sons of the
manse, who themselves sometimes turned their hands to lay preaching. The personal impact of the most religiously zealous of them
cannot be underestimated. The likes of T. H. Green, Edward Caird,
and Henry Jones personally enthused generations of students to
devote themselves to good works in the slums of Glasgow and
London.
In this introductory chapter, we indicate how and why German
philosophy came to have a foothold in a country with apparently
antithetical philosophical traditions. Secondly, we explore the way in
which British Idealism countered two of the most powerful scientific
and philosophical movements of the time, namely the naturalism of
evolution and utilitarianism. Against both tendencies Idealism
emphasized the ultimate Spiritual character of reality, for which neither could adequately account.

British Idealism

The Allure of Germany

Early in1770, Kant had made a vital distinction between knowledge

acquired through the senses and that attained through pure thought.
The latter he believed could reveal the fundamental character of
things and relations, which are not themselves present to the senses. It
was the revelation that such a metaphysics was in need of justification
that set the problems of philosophy for subsequent generations.
Kants Copernican revolution in philosophy was presented in his
Critique of Pure Reason some 11 years later in1781. He contended
that instead of thought having to conform to reality, that is, as it is
traditionally conceived as representing its objects, it is reality that has
to conform to thought apprehended through a priori categories such
as space, time and velocity. The world does not conform to whatever
we may believe. Instead, it conforms to our cognitive capacities. In
other words, reality is intelligible to us, as interpreted through a priori
categories of thought. Kant contends Before objects are given to me,
that is, a priori, I must presuppose in myself laws of the understanding which are expressed in conceptions a priori. To these conceptions,
then, all the objects of experience must necessarily conform.1
In Britain, German philosophy became the route through which
aspirant intellectuals could establish their own credentials. It was the
royal road to liberation from Scottish empiricism and common sense
philosophy and a counter to the dominance of utilitarianism and
naturalism in England. While the Germans were greatly admired, it
was not without reservation and some considerable modification
that they became domesticated. Both Thomas Carlyle and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge visited Germany and, in their own idiosyncratic
way, enmeshed the German Spirit with that of Great Britain.
Coleridge travelled to Germany with Wordsworth. He stayed first at
Ratzeburg and then at Gttingen, where he spent almost a year to effect
a more thorough revolution in his philosophical principles and a
deeper insight into his own heart.2 Coleridge confessed, however,
that his disposition was already somewhat formed before coming to
Kant and Schelling, but that the Germans nevertheless helped him
to gain clarity. Carlyle, however, proved to be the greater inspiration
for succeeding generations, including the doyens of Scottish and
English Idealism, Edward Caird and T. H. Green, respectively. Neither
Coleridge nor Carlyle, however, could claim any great expertise in
the works they purported to admire.
8

The Coming of British Idealism

In the early part of the nineteenth century, the Scotsmen William

Hamilton and Frederick Ferrier visited Germany and learnt the language in order to acquaint themselves first hand with the revolutionary ideas to be found there. It was James Frederick Ferrier (18081864)
who first elevated Hegel above Kant and Schelling and urged his fellow countrymen to take the trouble to gain a greater understanding
of the Hegelian position. He travelled to Germany in 1834 to
acquaint himself with the growing tide of German philosophy, which
he described as that mighty stream of tendency towards which all
modern meditation flows, the great gulf-stream of Absolute
Idealism.3 Although it is clear that Ferrier was not a committed
Hegelian and adopted a more sceptical and eclectic position.4
Ferriers complex relation to Scottish Common Sense philosophy
remains still a matter of contention, but he certainly developed his
own position with reference to it and became an opponent particularly of the intuitionist version, associated with Reids disciples. He
thought the latter was too susceptible to appropriation by religious
obscurantists. However, the German pilgrimage, which Ferrier initiated, gradually became almost obligatory for younger intellectuals.
Both T. H. Green and Edward Caird were inspired by Carlyles
example, and they in turn inspired others. Caird went to Dresden to
improve his German, and T. H. Green was a regular visitor to
Germany during the early 1860s.
Just before his election to a fellowship at Balliol in 1860, Green
took up an intense study of the German theologians of the Hegelianorientated Tbingen School, such as F. C. Baur. He also decided to
consider the work of Kant, Fichte and Hegel in much greater depth.
In effect, he satisfied himself, with the aid of their philosophies, that
much of what he found of permanent value in Christianity could be
preserved by their methods. In1874, Richard Burdon Haldane also
studied at Gttingen where, instructed by Herman Lotze, he acquired
a deep love for the work of Kant and Fichte. Haldane extolled the
virtues of Lotze as a teacher and subsequently influenced both
Andrew Seth5 and John Henry Muirhead in their decisions to visit
Gttingen.
In summary, Germany exposed young British intellectuals to a
new philosophical and literary landscape, yet none adopted Kant or
Hegel wholesale. Indeed, J. H. Muirhead contends that British
Idealism owed as much to the indigenous revival of Platonism, as it
did to Kantianism and Hegelianism. The transcendental element
9

British Idealism

inall such trends tended to function though as a generic antidote to

both naturalism and empiricism. By 1883, the year after the death of
T. H. Green, the aim and purpose of British Idealism did momentarily crystallize into a common endeavour, which thereafter, until
the 1920s, developed in a number of directions, including, as we shall
see in Chapter 2, the overt rejection and modification of Hegel by
the Personal Idealists.
Essays in Philosophical Criticism, edited by Haldane and Seth, was
published in 1883.6 The volume was dedicated, in a strongly symbolic way, to Green whose noted Prolegomena to Ethics was to be
published posthumously in the same year, just after F. H. Bradleys
Principles of Logic. Both Green and Bradley, in effect, prepared the
way for the development of Idealism to become the dominant philosophy in the English-speaking world in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Green had published his introduction to Hume, in
particular, in 1874. This cleared the philosophical ground for the
reception of Kants and ultimately Hegels work. F. H. Bradley had
also published his groundbreaking Ethical Studies (1876), in which
he attempted to transcend the limited conceptions of ethics associated with both utilitarianism and Kantianism.7
The author of the preface to Essays on Philosophical Criticism was
Edward Caird, the leading figure among Scottish Idealists. The
authors of the essays, Caird contended, all agreed that the line philosophy must follow had been inaugurated by Kant and carried forward by Hegel. The task the contributors set themselves was therefore
to discern, in the philosophers they studied, the core principles that
could throw light on the pressing questions of the day.8 Andrew Seth,
who 4 years later would lead the revolt against Hegelian Absolutism,
set the scene by emphasizing the importance of identifying exactly
what Kants critiques had destroyed. What Kant destroyed was the
notion that any metaphysical structure could be built upon an uncriticized dogma, whether it be the rationalism of Christian Wolff, or
the Empiricism of John Locke.9
How the philosophies of Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel came
rapidly to displace the Scottish Common Sense philosophy (and the
utilitarianism and naturalism of England) is nothing less than
remarkable. The English context of utilitarianism and the evolutionary organicism of Herbert Spencer is reasonably well known, but the
extent of the influence of Idealism in Scotland has been ignored, a
casualty of the scholarly obsession with the work of Hume, Reid,
10

The Coming of British Idealism

Fergusson and Hamilton. Idealism, nevertheless, came to dominate

British philosophy in general for more than 30 years.
The Reception of Kant and Hegel in Scotland

One of the reasons why the contribution of Scotland to Idealism has

not been adequately acknowledged is that it was rather alien to the
Scottish philosophy that preceded it. Further, what gave it a distinctive quality a heavy emphasis upon poetry and literature was not
itself philosophical. Thomas Carlyle, for example, used Hegels
thought freely, adapting it to his own somewhat mystical style. The
empiricism of Dugald Stewart and his colleague Thomas Brown at
Edinburgh University was, in Carlyles view, a mere preparation for
philosophy, and in particular, a preparation for what was to be found
in Kant. In his essay Signs of the Times, he encapsulated in the
phrase the Mechanical Age, his pejorative characterization of the
main features of the time.10 The problem in his view was that from
Locke onwards metaphysics in Britain had been both empiricist and
mechanistic, obsessed with the origins of consciousness and the
genetic history of the content of the mind. This task had been done
at the expense of exploring the mysteries of freedom and our relations to God, the universe, space and time. Unfortunately, Carlyle
sometimes gave the impression, not wholly justified, that he was
uninformed about philosophical systems. Even someone sympathetic
to Carlyle could argue that something more thorough going than the
literary methods of poetry and prophecy was called for to meet the
intellectual demands of the new time.11
Ferrier had expounded his ideas in opposition to Thomas Reid
and William Hamilton. Although Hamilton was critical of Kant and
Schelling, his philosophical negativity was, nonetheless, itself important in introducing their ideas to Scotland.12 Ferriers version of subjective Idealism was largely inspired by Berkeley. He was at the
forefront of interpreting Berkeley not as a mere transition between
Locke and Hume, but as the discoverer of the spiritual nature of
reality.13 Ferrier was severe in his judgement of Scottish Common
Sense philosophy. He noted that: Dr Reid, in the higher regions of
philosophy, is as helpless as a whale in a field of clover.14 Ferrier,
nevertheless, thought his own philosophy was, at root, Scottish. He
recognized the need for a rational philosophy expounded as a deductive system of necessary truths that could overcome the division
11

British Idealism

between the mind and its objects that reason created.15 This he saw as
the reconciliation of philosophy and common sense.16 He identified
the key to his philosophy in two propositions, to be found in The
Institutes of Metaphysic. The first is the principle of self-consciousness. Thus, there is an intelligence that knows itself as a foundation
of knowledge.17 He denies false dichotomies, such as the distinctions
between subject and object, the real and the ideal, sensation and
intellect. In relation to the subject/object dualism, upon which
Common Sense philosophy depends, he maintains that there cannot
be an object without a subject, nor a subject without an object. They
are inseparable and both presuppose each other. Knowing can neither consist in a pure object, nor, a subject.18
The second of the two propositions is the claim that we can be
ignorant only of that which can be known. Ignorance is a defect, and
there can be no defect in not knowing that which cannot be known.19
Anything that is unknowable or unthinkable is also unreal. Ferrier
claims, as the culmination of his argument, that: All absolute existences are contingent except one; in other words, there is One, but
only one, Absolute Existence which is strictly necessary; and that
existence is a supreme, and infinite, an everlasting Mind in synthesis
with all things.20 He nevertheless still often admitted to his colleagues
that he understood little of Hegel.21
Alexander Campbell Fraser was a student of William Hamilton at
Edinburgh University, and succeeded him to the chair of logic in1856.
He was another interpreter of Berkeley and Locke, and an admirer of
Reid. Yet, he was personally influential in encouraging his students,
including Andrew Seth, to take Hegel seriously. He was, in fact, an
acknowledged expert on Berkeley.22 It was his Berkeleyan theism that
enabled him to declare, towards the end of his life, a deep faith in an
immanent Divine Spirit. He set himself the task of reconciling J. S.
Mills and Herbert Spencers emphases on agnostic scientism with the
metaphysical and spiritual philosophies of Spinoza and Hegel. He
felt he could to do this through Berkeleys philosophy.
Fraser found in Berkeley a nascent theism able to counter contemporary attacks on the spiritual conception of the universe. Although
he leaned towards the scepticism of Hume, he had no doubts about
one thing: the reality of the self in self-conscious activity. Yet he
rejected Hegels Absolute Idealism, because it attempted to explain,
by abstract reason, the concrete things of sense. He began with
Berkeleys concrete things of sense. Instead of gravitating towards
12

The Coming of British Idealism

the empiricist and scientific naturalist tradition, Fraser, following

Berkeley, emphasized the ultimate spirituality of the universe. His
inclination was, in point, towards Personal Idealism,23 preferring
instead the term Spiritualism Realism which, in addition to affirming the spiritual reality of the universe, also affirmed the commonsense reality of the world of sense.
This was not a shallow Realism. It did not stop at the visible and
tangible world of phenomena and scientific laws. It rather penetrated
more deeply until it reached the spiritual world, which underpins
physical phenomena and from which we derive scientific significance.
What Berkeley teaches us, Fraser maintains, is that the material
world has its being and agency in Spirit.24 What he does not teach us,
however, is the moral character of the universe. In order to avoid
universal pessimism we must presuppose that the directing Spirit is
morally perfect.25 Overall, it was Frasers reluctance to accept
Hegelian Absolutism and his embrace of personal or subjective
Idealism that impressed Andrew Seth. Seth went on to develop a
personalism that did not rely on Berkeley, but which nevertheless did
not lose sight of the experiencing self.26
James Ferriers admission of failure to understand completely the
argument of the German was not shared by James Hutchison
Stirling, a gentleman scholar from Glasgow, resident just outside
Edinburgh, who somewhat recklessly claimed to have found the
secret of Hegel. His now infamous book, The Secret of Hegel: Being
the Hegelian System in Origin, Principle, Form and Matter (1865)
included rather terse translations of the Logic and a commentary
presented in a Carlyleian style.27 Stirling was indeed an admirer of
Carlyle. He believed, in effect, that Hegels secret was to be found in
Kants idea of a priori categories and in Hegels idea of the concrete
universal. Kants importance was to demonstrate that thought was
constitutive of things. Where he was remiss was in believing the
categories were mere representations of things in themselves. The
central idea, implicit in Kant, was of a universal that determines
its own particulars. Hegels advance on Kant was the insight that the
categories saturate subjective experience, while at the same time being
wholly objective. In Stirlings view, Hegel believed that the universe is
the creature of Gods thoughts. In knowing the world, we know the
thoughts of God.28
The books novelty ensured it attracted a wide audience. It was,
however, equally, if not more impenetrable, than Hegel himself. Even
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British Idealism

Stirlings admirers found it almost as difficult as the original.29 If

Stirling had found the secret of Hegel, it was suggested, he had kept
it very well.30 Despite its idiosyncratic style, The Secret of Hegel is
widely regarded as the first book in English to make Hegel more
accessible to the English-speaking world.31 Hegels popularity was
such in Scotland that most of his major writings were subsequently
translated by Scotsmen into English in a steady persistent flow. The
principal translations were: The Logic of Hegel (1874), and The
Philosophy of Mind (1894) by William Wallace of Cupar, Fife;
The Philosophy of Art (1886) by William Hastie of Wandlockhead,
Dumfries; Lectures on the History of Philosophy (189296) by E. S.
Haldane of Edinburgh, the younger sister of the Idealist Richard
Burdon Haldane; and The Phenomenology of Mind (1910) by J. B.
Baillie of Edinburgh University.
The role of Robert Flint in introducing continental ideas into
Britain should not be overlooked here. Flint took up, against T. H.
Greens candidature, the chair of moral philosophy at St. Andrews
University in1864, on the death of James Ferrier. Flint was a Scottish
disciple of the Italian eighteenth-century thinker Giambattista Vico,
the author of The New Science, who argued notably that the civil
social world was far more intelligible to us because we are its authors,
than the world of Nature (the author of which was God). Flint was
particularly important in making the English-speaking world aware
of unfamiliar continental ideas in the philosophy of history. He was
the first to write a book on Vico in the English language, in which he
contended: The star of Vico shows no sign of paling before those of
Comte and Hegel; it rather appears to derive from them additional
brightness.32 He meant here that Vico may be understood as the precursor of both Comtes positivism and Hegels Idealism. Flint was
not merely a reporter of ideas. He distinguished between the clear
exposition of a doctrine and its critical analysis, both of which he
regarded as important.
Carlyle, in addition to impressing Stirling, was a formative influence on the most formidable of the Scottish Idealists, Edward Caird,
as well as on Henry Jones, his protg, and ultimate successor to his
chair of moral philosophy at Glasgow. Cairds judgement was that
Carlyle was the first in Britain to discover the full significance of the
German literary revival and in particular how poetic and philosophical Idealism provided support for a declining faith.33 Jones came to
Carlyle independently while a young man at Bangor Normal Teacher
14

The Coming of British Idealism

Training College, and he claimed that his early admiration deepened

with the years.34
The Reception of Kant and Hegel in England

Just as a literary figure, such as Carlyle, brought German literature

and philosophy to the attention of the intellectual classes in Scotland,
England also had its champion in Samuel Taylor Coleridge, now
more famous for his poetry and literary criticism than philosophy or
politics. He was, at first, like the young William Wordsworth, a radical in politics, but disillusionment with the French Revolution
inclined him towards conservatism.
Hegels influence was, however, felt independently from literature, in
Oxford and Cambridge. Benjamin Jowett, the Master of Balliol, was
one of the few men in Oxford to read German and knew the works of
Kant and Hegel personally. He also acquainted himself with the
German historical school and its new methods in philology and biblical
criticism. Exposing Oxford to these tendencies helped to widen its horizon to broader intellectual movements. He was also influential in the
revival of interest in Platos philosophy by lecturing on and translating
his works. Although he was tired of Hegel in his later life, Jowett encouraged Green and his contemporaries to study the German theologians
and read the texts of the German Idealists in the vernacular. Direct
contact with the text elevated the level of scholarship far beyond that
which could be found in the paraphrases of Coleridge or Carlyle.35
One of the earliest and most important of the Oxford Idealists was
T. H. Green. Like contemporaneous fellow Idealists he had no great
interest in just replicating Hegels method. British Idealists all realized the significance of Kant in paving the way for Hegel, but in
order fully to appreciate the significance of Hegels philosophy a
great deal of philosophical waste had to be removed. Greens constructive philosophy was preceded by a thorough interrogation of
the assumptions and inconsistencies in the systems of Mill and
Spencer. Green concluded that their errors could be traced back to
Hume. In exposing the catalogue of inconsistencies in Hume, Green
appealed to Englishmen to put away their Mill and Spencer and take
up their Kant and Hegel.36
With Jowett, Green and Caird at Oxford, joined in1866 by William
Wallace, F. H. Bradley had much encouragement to take up Kant
and Hegel. The famous chapter in Ethical Studies, My Station and
15

British Idealism

its Duties was largely a restatement of Hegels notion of Sittlichkeit.

This is the strongest statement of a communitarian point of view to
emerge from the Idealists. The individual is nothing without society,
and morality is through and through social. However, as we will see
later, Bradley was dissatisfied with this formulation of morality and
superseded it with what he called, ideal morality. Bradleys health
did not permit him to contribute to John Henry Muirheads edited
volume Contemporary Political Philosophy, first series, and his death
intervened before the publication of the second series, which was
nevertheless dedicated to him. Muirheads dedication attributed to
Bradley the impulse that revived philosophy in the latter part of the
nineteenth century.37
F. H. Bradley (18461924) was born in Clapham, London, and
attended Greens lectures while at Oxford. In 1870, he became a life
Fellow of Merton College, on condition he remained a bachelor. He
took little active part in the intellectual life of Oxford after 1871
because of severe ill health, which plagued him for the rest of his life.
Bradleys initial encounter with German philosophy is not altogether
clear. It has been suggested that Bradleys second class in literae
humaniores was due to the critical Idealist stance he took towards the
prevailing empirical orthodoxy. What we do know is that, apart from
some earlier essays, Bradleys first systematic foray into academic
writing was his Ethical Studies (1876) and this work shows his wideranging and immensely sophisticated grasp of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German philosophy. In many ways, Ethical Studies is
the most directly Hegelian of Bradleys works. This was also a work
that he viewed with some ambivalence, resisting its republication
until shortly before his death in1924 (although he never lived to see
its appearance in 1927). In later books, such as The Principles of
Logic, he took a quite overtly critical stance to Hegel (repudiating
the idea that he was Hegelian) and if anything seemed more sympathetic to the work of Lotze and Sigwart. In consequence, Bradleys
work was unique among the British Idealists and occasionally caused
some puzzlement and anxiety among his philosophical contemporaries, such as Caird, Bosanquet and Jones. He undoubtedly retained
his very critical views on empiricism and naturalism and he clearly
still shared many of the core philosophical arguments of Idealism.
His work on logic (with that of Bosanquet) is, in many ways, the high
point of British Idealist contributions to Idealist logic. He is also often
classed with Bosanquet (who remained a close friend throughout
16

The Coming of British Idealism

his life) as one of the foremost representatives of Absolute Idealism

with the proviso that works such as Appearance and Reality
remained highly idiosyncratic within Idealism.
A second philosopher often linked with Bradley under the rubric
Absolute Idealism was Bernard Bosanquet (18481923). He was a
student of T. H. Green at Balliol. He was born at Rock Hall, the family estate, near Alnwick, Northumberland, and was educated at
Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained firsts in Classical
Moderations (1868) and Literae Humaniores (1870), the same year
as Bradley. As an undergraduate he was greatly influenced by both
Benjamin Jowett and more particularly T. H. Green. Green thought
him as one of the ablest students of his generation. It was at this
point, primarily under Greens influence, that Bosanquet developed
his lifelong interest in both Hegel and German philosophy. From
1870 to 1881, he was a fellow of University College. He did not find
Oxford much to his liking and went instead to live in London where
he became a prominent figure in the activities of The London Ethical
Society and the Charity Organisation Society, of which he became
chairman of the Council in1916. Bosanquet was also president of the
Aristotelian Society from 18941898. In 1903, he succeeded D. G.
Ritchie to the chair of Logic, Rhetoric, and Metaphysics at the
University of St. Andrews where he stayed until 1908, when he returned
to Oxshott, where he had bought a house in1899, in order to devote
his energies to writing. He delivered the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh
in1911 and 1912, which remain a systematic statement of his Absolute
Idealist position. Bosanquet was, with Henry Jones, one of the most
Hegelian thinkers among the British Idealists, and the most prolific
writer of the school on all aspects of philosophy and politics. One
important facet of his writing is that, despite his reputation as one
the foremost Hegelians and representatives of Absolute Idealism, he
nonetheless embodied a much broader and more eclectic philosophical position, particularly nearer the end of his life in works such as
The Meeting of Extremes in Contemporary Philosophy (1921). He was
also a prolific correspondent with leading philosophers of his day,
such as Benedetto Croce, Giovanni Gentile and Edmund Husserl.38
There were, of course, many lesser know Idealists at Oxford, such
as J. A. Smith and Harold Joachim, whose importance may be gauged
by their influence on the younger generation of Idealists. Joachims
The Nature of Truth was formative in the development of Michael
Oakeshotts thought at Cambridge, whereas at Oxford, Smith directed
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British Idealism

the young R. G. Collingwoods attention towards Italian Idealism of

which Smith was a major expositor in England. Smith, at first,
immersed himself in Aristotle, but later came to study Descartes,
Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. Such reading
did not dissuade him from subscribing to something like a realist
theory of knowledge in which the object known is unaffected by the
knowing subject. In other words, the object is what it is independent
of consciousness of it. Yet, it was a chance encounter with the work
of the Italian Idealist Benedetto Croce, while on holiday in Italy, that
was formative in the development of his philosophical position.
Smith first read Croce, and broadened his knowledge of the wider
philosophical context, which included the work of the Italian Idealist
Giovanni Gentile. He was unable to accept the full autonomy of the
forms presented by Croce, such as aesthetics and history, but nor was
he able to accept the Absolute of Bradley and Bosanquet. Both
Croce and Gentile put a great deal of emphasis on history as a form
of experience. Indeed, Gentile identified philosophy with its own history. Deriving inspiration from this source, Smith contends that the
whole of what is Real is constantly in movement. It is a process of
change. There is no static or inert background against which this
process takes place. Being is existence and not something that transcends it. To be is to exist, happen or occur. The Real is for Smith
history, and every part of it is historical. The implication is that he
rejects the doctrine that the Absolute includes within itself all histories and therefore has no history, thus parting company with Bradley
and Bosanquet. This history, he believes, is spiritual throughout, and
the Reality of which he speaks is activity. This spirituality realizes
itself in self-consciousness.39
Unlike the Italians who inspired him, Smith never put the philosophy into practice by demonstrating what his view of philosophy
implied when addressing particular problems. Gentile, de Ruggiero
and Croce all undertook extensive historical investigations. Their
philosophical conclusions were formulated by embedding the questions in their historical development. In emulating the Italians, it was
R. G. Collingwood who ultimately shifted the focus of Oxford away
from the Germans.
In Cambridge, the stirrings of Idealism begin with John Grote,
who in1865 published Exploratio Philosophica, the culmination of
many years of engagement with indigenous and German philosophical ideas. While regretting Ferriers system-building, and rejecting his
18

The Coming of British Idealism

abhorrence of ordinary language, Grote generally agreed with

Ferriers views on knowledge. The general character of Ferriers
thought he took to be philosophical Idealism, which was suggestive
of his own work.40 Grote was largely eclipsed, in Cambridge, by the
work of J. M. E. McTaggart and to a lesser extent William Ritchie
Sorley. Cambridge Idealism in the twentieth century, however, was
epitomized by the indomitable Michael Oakeshott, who was not
unmindful of Grote.
Sorley was one of the original contributors to Essays in Philosophical
Criticism. His contribution was The Historical Method in which he
identified the parameters of the range of questions to which the
method was appropriate, and the limits beyond which it had nothing
to offer.41 The rejection of speculative philosophy of history and a
turning towards critical philosophy of history, that is, the examination of the postulates of historical understanding, while pioneered
by F. H. Bradley, became a major preoccupation of the latter day
British Idealists, that is, Oakeshott in Cambridge and Collingwood
in Oxford.
In The Moral Life, Sorley argued that religion provides the unity for
the diverse expressions of morality: temperance, courage, wisdom,
justice and benevolence.42 The view that religion is somehow the completion of morality seemed to Oakeshott preferable to the alternatives, that is, the view that there is no relation between the two or that
they are identical.43 In this respect, he is much closer to Bradley. Sorley
was though largely preoccupied with the debates of the latter part of
the nineteenth century, particularly with the relationship between
evolution and ethics, and the ethics of naturalism in general.44
McTaggart taught an Introduction to the Study of Philosophy at
Cambridge, and Oakeshott was a pupil of both him and Sorley.45
Oakeshotts notebooks show that he was an avid reader of a wide
range of non-philosophical and philosophical books, many of them
written by Idealists. The notebooks show that he was familiar with
the work of Caird, McTaggart, Bosanquet, Jones and Mackenzie, in
addition to Bradley and Hegel. His tendency was to copy quotations
rather than comment on them, but the quotations often resonate
with a content that was later to become his own. In1922, his selection
betrayed the value he was to place upon activities or practices. He
quotes extensively, for example, from Henry Jones A Faith That
Enquires; A thing is what it does. A thing that does nothingisnothing. Strip an object of its activities, and see what remains: You will
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British Idealism

find nothing.46 The same idea is expressed differently in Oakeshotts

selection from McTaggarts Introduction to Ethics: The inside of two
empty boxes are no doubt singularly alike. But the unity of this sort
may possibly be over-valued.47 This emphasis upon unity, which so
characterizes Experience and its Modes, is replicated in the notes
Oakeshott took from a review of The Life and Philosophy of Edward
Caird (edited by Muirhead and Jones) in the Hibbert Journal, October
1922: At the basis of his whole thought lay a single idea, reaching
not by reasoning but by insight, expressed better (letter 1891) in the
words to me difference always seems to presuppose and replicate
unity which is the fact below all other facts.48
By 1933, while still able to muster new recruits, Idealism was under
siege from all sides. In that year two of the younger generation of
Idealists published works that were to ignite the steady flame that
continues today with increasing brightness. The publication of
Oakeshotts Experience and its Modes in1933 was in the same year
as Collingwoods An Essay on Philosophical Method. There is an
affinity between Collingwoods Speculum Mentis (1924) and
Oakeshotts Experience and its Modes, in that they constitute the last
truly comprehensive British Idealist studies of the variety of forms
of experience. Collingwoods An Essay on Philosophical Method is a
defence and justification of the method he employed in Speculum
Mentis, which focuses on establishing the differences between philosophical and scientific concepts.49 Oakeshotts Experience and its
Modes combines the exemplification and justification of philosophical method. It is an exploration of the idea of unconditional knowledge, manifest in interrogating the conditionality of abstract arrests
in experience, where the unconditional is an unachievable ideal
towards which the philosopher is always en route.
Against Naturalism: The Allure of Evolution

The discussion now moves on to two issues of late-nineteenth-century

Britain, aiming to exemplify the way in which Idealism responded to
prevailing norms of the time. The issues are evolution and utilitarianism. These examples are simply illustrative of the way Idealism
functioned as a mode of philosophical critique.
Evolutionary theory is rarely included in introductory philosophy
books these days, so it is difficult to conceive of the impact that this
form of naturalism had on all aspects of intellectual life. It came to
20

The Coming of British Idealism

dominate ways of thinking throughout the second half of the nineteenth century because, unlike the other sciences, it was intelligible to
a wider audience, and it held out the possibility of being the foundational unifying explanation for all of the sciences, including philosophy. David George Ritchie, probably more influenced by evolution
than any of the other British Idealists, contended: Evolution is
very generally looked upon as the central idea of modern scientific
and philosophical thought.50
One may wish to argue that evolutionary theory has nothing to
offer philosophy. Wittgenstein, for example, argued that no form of
naturalism, including Darwinian evolution, contributed anything to
philosophy. The role of philosophy was logically to clarify thoughts,
and therefore an empirical theory such as Darwins was an irrelevance.51 Idealism, however, was not only a logic seeking conceptual
clarification, but also a metaphysics and ontology, which assigned to
philosophy the role of rationally accounting for what is given in experience. Naturalism contends that explanations of human activity
should take the form of explanation offered for any other aspect of
nature, because humans are part of nature.52 The appropriate method
is scientific, because scientific explanation is the most appropriate
way to understand the natural world.
Darwin certainly aspired to conform to the methods of modern
natural science, particularly those inspired by Newtons astronomy,
and developed by the empiricist astronomer John F. W. Herschel and
the neo-Kantian and strongly anti-evolutionist philosopher of the
inductive sciences, William Whewell. They differed considerably on
metaphysical questions, as their primary loyalties would suggest, and
also in the extent to which they disagreed with Darwin, but all three
concurred at a fundamental level on what a scientific explanation
should look like. They saw scientific theories as hypothetico-deductive
systems. This entails a distinction between fundamental, or universal,
laws, and derived or empirical laws. What the scientist must aim for, in
Herschels and Whewells views, is not contingent causes identified to
explain a particular phenomenon, but instead the relation of phenomena of different kinds, explicable by means of an all-sufficient
cause or mechanism, quite likely reducible to some sort of force.53 The
hypothetico-deductive model and the attempt to explain disparate
phenomena by means of one overarching cause are features evident
in Darwins methodology throughout his scientific endeavours.
The hypothetico-deductive model is exemplified, but not always very
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British Idealism

successfully as many critics pointed out, in the way Darwin argues the
case for the struggle for existence as the driving force for natural selection, which is the mechanism that facilitates evolution.54 Natural
selection was the fundamental cause or mechanism by which problems in diverse field could be related and explained from geology,
classification and comparative anatomy to embryology and so on.
Darwins influence on social evolutionists has been exaggerated,55
and ignores the fact that long before him evolutionary ideas were
being proposed and taken seriously by many leading scholars.56
In 1809, for example, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck contended species
developed and transmuted, by means of the mechanism of use and
disuse. Animals that once spent many hours in daylight, but which
for survival took to spending most of their time underground, lose
over time and through inheritance the faculty of vision. Use and
disuse of the organs lead to modifications in their powers to act
effectively. Environmental factors could lead to physical changes and
spontaneous transmutations in organisms. The changes, including
those of moral character, were then inherited by subsequent generations. This is the doctrine of inherited characters.
Sir Charles Lyell not only formulated the hypothesis of the struggle
for existence, but also attacked the argument for use and disuse
inheritance in his famous Principles of Geology (18301833). Darwin,
while not completely in disagreement with the doctrine of use and
disuse, put forward the doctrine of Natural Selection as the principal
mechanism of change. Lyell came to accept Darwins idea, but not until
after the 1867 edition of the Origin of Species, some 7 years after its
first publication. Herbert Spencer is probably the most notorious of
the social evolutionists, but he was in fact inspired by Lyells attempted
refutation of Use and Disuse, rather than Darwins initial positive
endorsement. Spencer was though tremendously accessible to a wide
reading public with his populist biology (philosophically conceived,
but not well grounded in empirical research) and extended by analogy
to society.
On the surface of it, Idealism shared with evolution a propensity
to understand a problem or an event as it unfolded. J. B. Baillie contended: For a time it seemed possible to interpretall forms of experience in terms of the central fact of knowledge regarded as an
evolution of thought.57 Idealism, however, was not a naturalistic
philosophy and therefore felt compelled to challenge the naturalistic
postulates of evolution and provide a more satisfactory theory based
22

The Coming of British Idealism

on Hegelian principles. While agreeing with naturalistic evolutionists

that humanity is continuous with nature, the Idealists still contended
the first must be explained and understood in terms of the last, and
not as Darwin posited, the higher must be explained with reference
to the lower in the evolutionary process. W. R. Sorley encapsulates
the Darwinian contention succinctly: What we call the higher forms
are in all cases developments from simpler and lower forms.58
Herbert Spencer similarly contends: we must interpret the more
developed by the less developed.59
In this respect Idealists do not go as far as to suggest that humans
are so different in kind from the rest of nature that they require completely different forms of explanation. It is nature that has to be
explained in terms fitting of human beings. The contention is not
that nature is intelligent, but that it is intelligible only to the mind
that knows it, that is, the human mind. Because humans are selfconscious we should explain their behaviour in terms of values, principles and ideas rather than instincts.60
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallaces theories were first
revealed, in the absence of both authors, at a meeting of the Linnean
Society in London on 1 July 1858. The occasion was inauspicious
and the sponsor of the papers, Joseph Hooker, thought the whole
subject under discussion rather ominous.61 At the end of the year, the
President of the Society thought the proceedings for the session
rather uneventful. On first sight, Darwin thought Wallaces conclusions were almost identical to his own. Wallace had even isolated
natural selection as the evolutionary mechanism. It transpired, however,
that there were significant differences between their theories. The
mechanism for eliminating the unfit differed: for Wallace it was
the environment, while for Darwin the emphasis was on a merciless
competition among individuals.
Ideologically, they were wide apart and it influenced the way they
interpreted evidence. In studying the Dyaks, for example, as a committed socialist, Wallace viewed them in egalitarian terms. Darwin, a
committed conservative, understood the Fuegians as savage and bestial.62 They also differed on the question of the ultimate purpose of
Natural Selection. Darwin rejected the question altogether, while
Wallace was convinced that the end was the achievement of a more
just society and the gradual perfection of man. The outline that
Darwin received from Wallace in1858 gave no indication of these
differences.63 Wallaces findings as Darwin understood them in1858,
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British Idealism

panicked him into the publication of The Origin of Species in1859.

Consequently, the account was far less detailed than Darwin would
have liked. This elicited a good deal of criticism along the lines that
the argument was too hypothetical and not deductive enough.64
In The Origin of Species, Darwin put forward three main contentious hypotheses. The first was that new species emerge as a result of
modifications that take place in other species, that is, the transmutation hypothesis. Secondly, species emerge in a manner that resembles
branches of a tree, therefore at some point all species share a common ancestor in the evolutionary process. And, thirdly, the principal,
but not exclusive, mechanism for change in this process was natural
selection.65
Despite Darwin deliberately avoiding the issue of Creation portrayed
in the book of Genesis, and expressing his ideas in as non-provocative
a manner as possible, readers drew their own conclusions.
The context against which Darwin was judged was, for example,
the affirmation of the religious hypothesis by the eighteenth-century
zoologist, Linnaeus, who contended that species are immutable,
irrespective of the fact that there were frequent anatomical resemblances between different species.66 Darwin denied that each species
was independently created. He contended that there is a common
ancestry from which each species develops, many had become
extinct, and few would transmit progeny unchanged to a distant
future.67 The implications were clear. Darwins theory was a denial
of the Creationist theory and a challenge to the natural theology of
thelikes of William Paley. Paley proposed an example that was to
become famous and inspire the title of one of Richard Dawkins
books.68 Paley asks us to think of the universe as a watch, with its
immensely intricate mechanism, requiring a watchmaker, or creator,
namely God, the artificer who designed it to fulfil a specific purpose. Paley applies the same principle to plants, animals and human
beings. An artificer designs and creates each with a purpose to fulfil
a particular function, the beneficiary of which may not always be
the organisms that possess the qualities.69 A second implication of
Darwins theory to cause consternation was the unwarranted belief
that he contends that man was descended from the apes. What he
actually claimed was that the apes and man have a common
ancestor. But in either case the implication was that the absolute
distinction between Nature and Spirit, or animal and human nature,
wasdenied.
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The Coming of British Idealism

Although derided by many for being a poor biologist and an even

worse philosopher, Spencer captured the popular imagination.
Richard Hofstadter says of Spencers work: it was not a technical
creed for professionals. Presented in language that tyros in philosophy could understand, it made Spencer the metaphysician of the
home-made intellectual, and the prophet of the cracker barrel
agnostic.70 Because of its practical and reforming character, the
British Idealists could not allow Spencers form of naturalism to
appropriate evolution. Spencer had to be discredited if Idealism were
to put forward its positive evolutionary reforming doctrines. Henry
Jones, Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison and Bosanquet, to mention
only a few, were harsh in their judgements. They variously believed
that his whole project, premised on an unmoved mover, was sheer
madness, and his ideas were common place, and lacking sensitivity
on intellectual and moral issues. Furthermore, Spencer was held
accountable for importing conceptions and fashionable analogies
drawn from anywhere, except experience of the phenomena to be
explained. The result was crude distortions of fundamental truths
obvious to us for 2,000 years.71
Idealists gave little credence to the Lamarckian principle of inherited characters, while at the same time stressing a strong, but not
exclusive, environmental influence upon human personality. The
theory of inherited characters seemed to Idealists, such as David
Ritchie, surplus to requirements. There are no instances of heredity
that could be explained by the theory of inherited characters which
could not be explained by other means, such as natural selection,
habit, training and imitation. The case for inherited characters was
simply not proven.72 Natural Selection was indisputable.73 We
should not therefore revert to dubious or unknown causes, Ritchie
argues, when there are known causes that are sufficient. Natural
Selection, for him, works in both nature and society.
The capacities that we inherit genetically are capable of being
developed or hindered by the social environment or civilization into
which the individual is born, and which we may say is likewise inherited by successive generations. The facilitator for such social inheritance is language. Language, self-consciousness, and the ability to
reflect, make it possible to transmit experience that is not biologically inheritable. The explanation of how we come to possess such
advantages in the struggle for existence, Ritchie claims, is the hypothesis of Natural Selection.74 We inherit biologically the capacities for
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British Idealism

self-realisation, but without an environment conducive to their flourishing our capabilities would come to nought. As Henry Jones
colourfully suggested, you can place a canary in a cage in the most
depraved and debauched dens of iniquity and it will suffer no moral
harm. A child, however, placed in the same environment suffers
irreparable damage.
We tend to think of nineteenth-century evolution as one theory, or
dominant paradigm, to use Thomas S. Kuhns words, which normal
scientists then apply to a wide sphere of natural and human activity.
It was, when released on the world in1859, a highly speculative theory, and as with all scientific revolutions much needed to be accepted
on faith or trust.75 It was a theory ripe in itself for spawning different
strains. The British Idealists themselves developed a distinctive form
of evolution based on Hegels notion of emanation. We may call this
Spiritual evolution, and it is distinct from its contemporaneous
competitors, naturalistic and ethical evolution.76 Each type had different postulates and no necessary political or social conclusions followed from any. Each could and was used to justify political
programmes from the extreme left to the extreme right.
However, the issue of ethics, religion and evolution continued to
open up deep divisions in late Victorian Britain. Orthodox
Christianity posited a distinct break between nature and spirit.
Humans thus occupied a different sphere from that of animals and
were distinct in possessing moral characters uniquely bestowed upon
them by God. Naturalistic evolution appeared to posit a fundamental challenge to this deep social convention. It postulated a continuity between Nature and Spirit, in which the former was explanatory
of the latter. This is what Darwin meant by suggesting: When I view
all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of
some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian
system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.77
Spencer was similarly explicit: we must interpret the more developed
by the less developed.78 Debates on this issue raged across late nineteenth century Europe.
However, Darwins friend and admirer, T. H. Huxley, opened up a
sweeping divide between Nature and Spirit. Physiologically, and on
zoological criteria, he classified humans with the apes. Both had a
common origin and had undergone similar evolutionary processes.
Darwin, in fact, relied heavily upon Huxleys findings to substantiate
his own arguments in the Descent of Man published in1871.79 There
26

The Coming of British Idealism

was more to human existence than zoological categories and explanations could comprehend. The pursuit of natural rights, in
Hobbesian terms, undermined society and benefitted only the successful individual. Naturalistic-based rights have no correlative obligations. The carnivorous tiger has a natural right to eat meat, but
humans have no correlative obligation to submit themselves to its
appetites. Moral rights do have correlative obligations conducive to
social progress.80 It was Huxleys view that the survival of the fittest
could not constitute an ethical standard, because fitness is circumstantially related to the variability of nature. Ethics are not applied
Natural History.81 The evolution of Nature and moral evolution
were for him two different and discontinuous processes. Within the
cosmic process, which governs the evolution of nature and human
organisms, the idea of the survival of the fittest was appropriate. The
attributes and capacities required for success in nature (red in tooth
and claw) are exactly those that destroy social existence. The emergence of morality did not begin until the cosmic process had been
checked, starting with a concern for the opinions of others, developing into shame and sympathy. Feelings of approval and disapproval
generated moral rules. On their acquisition we gradually became
accustomed to thinking about conduct in terms of them. This was
what Huxley called the artificial personality, or conscience, which
countered the natural character of man. W. R. Sorley summarizes
the position admirably: The cosmic order has nothing to say to the
moral order, except that, somehow or other, it has given it birth; the
moral order has nothing to say to the cosmic order, except that it is
certainly bad. Morality is occupied in opposing the methods of
evolution.82
Huxley inserted a proviso, however, which introduced an ambiguity. This subsequently gave ammunition to his critics. Strictly speaking, he argued, social life, and the ethical process in virtue of which
it advances towards perfection, are part and parcel of the general
process of evolution. What is more, Huxley contends, the general
cosmic process begins to be checked by a rudimentary ethical process, which is strictly speaking, part of the former.83 The dualism he
posited between Nature and Spirit is undermined.
As always, when faced with a dualism, British Idealism takes
the antithetical points of view and synthesizes them into an understanding that brings out the positives on both sides. Evolution is no
exception. Evolution is nothing other than another name for the
27

British Idealism

development of Spirit. Naturalistic theories of evolutionary ethics

explicitly assert the unity of the cosmos. The unity is not as such a
proposition to be proved, but instead an inescapable assumption, a
colligating hypothesis or absolute assumption.84 Evolution is the
hypothesis that provides the methodizing conception which we
employ to render intelligible to ourselves the process which spirit follows in becoming free.85 The Idealists reassert the unity of Nature
and Spirit, but reverse the explanatory power of naturalism. The
higher accounts for the lower. Nature is infused with Spirit and intelligible to the mind that knows it.
Huxleys argument particularly became the focus of much attention, providing a corrective to those who posited nature as the criterion of moral conduct. The responses of Idealists were various,
ranging from Bosanquets dismissal of the theory as a fatal
misconception,86 to Joness argument reaffirming the unity of
Nature and Spirit, while at the same time acknowledging the error of
ignoring or understating the difference between naturalistic processes
and rational moral activity. For Huxley, nature is incapable of knowing or thinking and therefore lacks the capacity of morality. Knowing
and thinking nevertheless presupposes nature. Nature presents us
with the data. Intelligence interprets it, but an intelligence that nature
herself has evolved. The product of intelligence, namely knowledge,
belongs just as much to nature as to man. Intelligence is the instrument through which nature is expressed, and although nature is not
itself intelligent, it is intelligible only to the mind. There is an interdependence between nature and mind, neither capable of existing
without the other, and far from being opposed to morality, nature is
a willing partner in its development.87 The unity of nature and spirit
is maintained by arguing for the all-sufficiency of natural selection.
It can easily account for both moral progress and organic development. Ritchie maintains recognition of the spiritual principle at work
in the universe is the condition of our understanding nature.88
British Idealists thus reaffirmed the unity of Nature and Spirit, but
differentiated themselves from naturalistic evolution by denying the
explanatory power of origins in any theory. Agreeing with Hegel
they maintained that: Nothing can be more certain than that all
philosophical explanation must be explanation of the lower by the
higher.89 For Hegel, we understand a part only by looking at it as
part of a whole. The origins of something are properly understood
when they are comprehended as the early stages of something more
28

The Coming of British Idealism

fully developed. This applies to all specialist fields of knowledge,

including the attempt to conceive the universe as a whole.90 Caird
thus maintains: in the first instance at least, we must read development backward and not forward, we must find the key to the meaning
of the first stage in the last.91 Although acknowledging the unity of
Nature and Spirit, Spencers evolutionary theory failed because it
did not acknowledge Aristotles dictum that the true nature of a
thing is to be found not in its origin but in its end.92 Spirit cannot be
explained in terms of matter, and that matter itself is intelligible only
in the context of the Spiritual World.93
In summary, evolution in the mind of the Idealists was therefore
an affirmation rather than a denial of religious and moral experience. Evolution bridged the divide between the present and the past,
revealing the unity in the diversity of humanity by distinguishing
the one spiritual principle which is continuously working in mans
life from the changing forms through which it passes in the course of
its history.94 Evolution, understood in this manner, intimated the
solution to the dualism between the mind and its objects, and held
out the promise of undergirding moral and religious experience.95
The Revolt Against Utilitarianism

Bernard Williams observed that morality is not an invention of philosophers. It is an outlook, or, incoherently, part of the outlook, of
almost all of us. For Williams, we live morally before, during and
after reflection and the important business is living, not so much the
reflection.96 Moral practice is not something therefore that flows
necessarily from a philosophers premises. There is though a complex
and subtle relation between moral philosophy and moral practice.
This comment in the 1980s echoes a comment from the British
Idealist philosopher T. H. Green in the 1880s, namely that, on many
occasions, conventions, institutions and tradition embody an implicit
reason and actuate men independently of the operations of the discursive intellect.97 Morality is not primarily an abstraction; it is integral to human institutions, communities and social practices. We can
make it an abstraction in philosophical reflection, but that can sometimes have quite a limited role in human affairs. Greater knowledge
of morality cannot always be gained by moving away from practices
and impersonalizing or abstracting them. We learn morality continuously in concrete contexts.
29

British Idealism

One important pervasive aspect of the concrete context of late

nineteenth- and indeed twentieth-century Britain, was a deeply
instinctive commitment to utilitarianism as a mode of value appraisal.
One might almost see it, at points, as a metaphysical presupposition.
As Iris Murdoch remarked in1993, Some form of utilitarianism is
probably now the most widely and instinctively accepted philosophy.98
This would be as true of the Victorian era as today. Henry Sidgwick
(18381900), the very quintessence of late Victorian intellectual utilitarianism and a committed philosophical opponent of Idealism
sensed this underlying instinct. In both his Method of Ethics (1874)
and Elements of Politics (1891), he assumed that utility was indeed
the underlying customary ethics and common sense of British culture in toto. For Sidgwick, common-sense utility embodied a neutral
standard. It needed therefore to be continually referred to and indeed
cast (for Sidgwick) in a scientific format. He argued that all the practical common-sense virtues we use in everyday practice are therefore,
in essence, utilitarian. Ordinary practice provides what Sidgwick
referred to as the middle axioms for utilitarianism. When carefully
criticized and refined these axioms provided a purified ethical guidance. Utilitarianism was therefore seen as the adult morality of the
British people in the 1870s and 1880s, infecting their personal lives as
well as their public policy.
Sidgwick unexpectedly claims that the decisive background influence in formulating this perspective was Aristotle. He comments that
Aristotles Ethics provides the common sense Morality of Greece,
reduced to consistency by careful comparison: given not as something external to him but as what we think, ascertained by
reflection. Sidgwick continues, Might I not imitate this: do the same
for our morality here and now [in Victorian England] in the same
manner of impartial reflection on current opinion.99 Utility thus
embodied the ethos of an historical community.
This was, however, a utilitarianism, as has been remarked, grown
sleek and tame.100 Sidgwick thus used Jeremy Bentham (in his
Elements of Politics) to justify, in effect, the political principles of
Edmund Burke.101 The upshot of this position, in Sidgwick, was, as
many have noted, both theoretically and practically conservative.
Sidgwick, by the late 1880s, had moved on a practical level from
Millian liberal radicalism to a Burkean conservatism. However,
Sidgwicks utilitarian ethics in the 1880s, in the final analysis, lacked
the strident self-confidence of Bentham or the positivistic yearnings
30

The Coming of British Idealism

and liberal radicalism of J. S. Mill. His utilitarianism was more eclectic, sceptical and wavering, yet still committed, in the end, to utilitarian calculation, consequentialism and policy recommendation.
There are two further features to note, on the above analysis: first,
utilitarianism in the nineteenth century was not one singular thing.
Sidgwick, J. S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham all had markedly different
perspectives, both morally and politically. Utilitarianism was a
hydra-headed creature with deep and diverse allegiances among, for
example, classical liberals, some new liberals, classical political economists, evolutionary theorists, anarchists, socialists and conservatives. In this sense alone, it would be difficult to see precisely what
kind of moral, social and political philosophy could arise necessarily
from utilitarianism. Secondly, one important idea that could be easily missed in identifying utilitarianism as the concrete context of
British culture during this period is the element of self-criticism and
reflexivity. Although humans develop within certain concrete contexts, they do not simply abdicate reflection. The human self is both
shaped and shaping continuously within conventions and social
institutions. The crucial question is whether we remain within them
or alternatively convert to another mode of value appraisal. Humans
thus have the continuous open possibility to interrogate themselves
and others about the demands of their native or adopted traditions.
In this sense, it is important to realize that what Sidgwick thought of
as the concrete context of British culture did clearly come under sustained criticism from the British Idealist movement, on a number of
levels. In a vital sense, for a considerable time, Idealism initiated a
major reversal of utilitarian fortunes.
In recent years, some scholars have seen elements of utilitarianism
within the philosophical domain of Idealism itself, and indeed,
Idealists themselves did not deny the efficacy of such notions of
value, nor as we have already seen the values of evolution, suitably
incorporated into its own spiritual conception of the world. For
example, consequentialist motifs have been identified in the philosophy of T. H. Green, although many other scholars vigorously contest the efficacy of this claim. However, less problematically with
Idealists such as David G. Ritchie, there was clearly a subtle adaptation of a form of social utilitarianism to Idealism. For Ritchie,
utilitarianism was clearly not without its merits, but it took the doctrine of evolution, particularly natural selection, together with
Idealist social theories, to correct its errors and vindicate its truths.
31

British Idealism

In a very different manner, a philosopher such as R. G. Collingwood

also integrated utility into a much broader value scale with both
right and duty.102 Every action, he contended, was the embodiment
of all three values, and each could be justified because it was useful,
right, or my duty.
On the most general level, though, what did utilitarianism represent to British Idealism and what were the key flaws in the doctrine?
This is a complex and multi-faceted issue that can only be briefly
glossed. Many domains and arguments overlap. On the most general
level Idealism responded critically to utilitarianism on metaphysical,
epistemological, moral, social and political levels.
Metaphysically utilitarian arguments were seen to rely on the idea
of an aggregation of single sentient individuals to make any case
for morality or politics possible. British Idealism saw this as exemplifying an underlying metaphysical abstraction. On one level utilitarianism was seen to have failed to articulate the underlying nature of
the individual self, a point that is as true today as it was in the 1880s.103
For Idealists there was no way that any of us could really imagine
(except in our wildest flights of fantasy) being utterly alone (atomized) and still thinking morally especially in abstracted utilitarian
terms. As F. H. Bradley ironically commented on this metaphysical
spectre within utilitarianism (in this case in Sidgwick): Figure yourself then, reader your imagination, not like mine, may keep pace
with authors figure yourself as a single sentient being in a nonsentient universe, and tell us, would you not believe in a real end of
Reason, the absolutely Good or Desirable?104
Epistemologically, Idealists associated this atomistic and individualist theory (within utilitarianism) with a deeply empiricist account
of knowledge. In this sense, knowledge was derived from sensations,
perceptions and experiences, via an engagement with an external
world. Truth claims therefore entailed correspondence with this
external world. For Idealists, in very general terms, the self could not
be identified with any series of discrete perceptions, experiences or
sensations, since the self, as such, was seen as the presupposition to
there being any sensations, perceptions of experiences, particularly
sensations or experiences which were identified in terms of a series.
For Idealism (following Kant), knowledge of the world exists in the
context of the conscious subject. There could be no experience of
things antecedent to the conscious subject. Thus, a consistent empiricist account of knowledge (characteristic of utilitarian thought)
32

The Coming of British Idealism

would literally be speechless. A series of sensations, feelings or experiences (such a pleasures or preferences) would be meaningless unless
they presupposed a conscious subject as the ground for such a
series.
Further, the idea of a sum of any such feelings or experiences
would be conceptually meaningless. How could the utilitarian agent
(epistemologically) know a sum of infinitely passing unrelated pleasures, feelings or sensations, which were still continuously mutating?
In a similar way, how could one gain any clear interpersonal comparisons of, say, utilities (whether it was preferences, pleasures or
welfare)? The greatest sum of utility, in any of these formats, remained
for Idealists purely fictional and rhetorical. Could one, for example,
actually compare the pleasantness of diverse, transient, unrelated
pleasures? Could one actually know a sum of different pleasures?
Could there be any quantitative grasp of pleasures, that is, a cognitive science that collated passing ephemeral sensations? These questions contain their own substantive debates which will not be pursued
here. However, for Idealism, the utilitarian did not really provide
adequate answers to any of these questions. Consequently, its account
of human knowledge was seen as completely epistemologically
flawed. For Idealists, knowledge of the experiential world (and
nature) could not explain the nature of knowledge. Utilitarianism a
philosophy focused largely on empiricism and a form of sensationalism was thus considered to be epistemically defective from its very
inception.
Morally, utilitarianism was also seen as a deeply problematic doctrine insofar as it was linked, once again, in the minds of most
Idealists, to the same unsubstantiated abstract atomism. Utilitarianism
was thus seen to treat human individuals as, more or less, selfenclosed homogeneous moral atoms, with similar feelings which could
be mechanically quantified, and among whom a quantity of pleasures could be distributed. Its demand on institutions was that they
justified themselves in terms of their conduciveness to the general
happiness. For D. G. Ritchie, for example, Benthamite utilitarianism
was open to many of the criticisms of the theory of natural rights.
The appeal to nature tries to reconcile the abstract individualism of
the multiplicity of isolated instincts with an abstract universalism
concerning humanity. Like the bogus appeal to nature, utilitarianism
assumed a narrow uniformity of human nature over time and place.
It combined the abstract individualism of treating every person as a
33

British Idealism

discrete unit, with the abstract universalism concerning its view of

happiness, which is taken to have an existence divorced from the concrete individuals who are singularly capable of experiencing it.
Once again there is a battery of Idealist arguments here on the
question of morality, but at the most basic level, pleasure (in classical utilitarian theory) was seen as far too abstract and contentless to
be of much use in any process of serious valuation. Pleasure and
pain were both viewed, once again, as transient feelings. The concepts were abstractions from these vague feelings feelings which
were regularly coming into being and then perishing. A series of
pleasures, in diverse sentient individuals, could not function as any
guide to conduct. The idea of greatest possible happiness or pleasure was a pure moral fiction an infinite quantity of pleasures was
utterly incoherent if postulated as an end. Consequently, the idea of
any moral calculus of pleasures or interests (or preferences) struck
most Idealists as meaningless.
Furthermore, pleasures may not always be good and pain not
always bad. Some pleasures and pains may, in fact, be neither good
nor bad. Pleasure, in other words, is not coterminous with morality.
If pleasure is the end, it would appear to be even more significant
than virtue. Virtue becomes merely a means. In addition, virtuous
acts, as we commonly recognize them, do not always conduce to happiness.105 The greatest good and most virtuous acts do not necessarily therefore lead to the greatest pleasure. This would appear to be a
mundane observation on moral experience. Thus, for Idealists, hedonism and utilitarianism could clash with ordinary morality. Morality
may include pleasure, but it was not the end of moral action. Pleasure
may supervene on morality, but was not coincidental with it. Further,
utility did not tell us how to act. To think of pleasure as a motive was
to confuse a motive (the object before the mind) with a psychical
stimulus (which is not an object before the mind).
Finally, one of the key critical concerns of Idealism with utilitarianism was that it tended to view society in the same odd dogmatic
manner, namely, as an aggregate of separate isolated atoms. There
were some variations though on this issue among utilitarian thinkers.
Both Herbert Spencer and Leslie Stephen although utilitarians
thought individualism was deficient if it did not take account of the
social factor and understand society as an biological organism. Both,
therefore, simultaneously attempted to sustain the organic metaphor
for society; but, for Idealist critics, both failed to liberate themselves
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The Coming of British Idealism

from empiricism and naturalism.106 For Idealists, they neglected the

real nature of the social organism, which is neither mechanical nor
biological, but instead depends upon the complex recognition of the
relations in which each person stands with every other. The sinews
and ligaments of society are the moral ideas and personal relations,
without which a society would be a mere aggregation.
In effect the communitarian-inspired British Idealists saw themselves in profound opposition to the social and political ideas of utilitarian individualism, not only in Mill and Bentham, but also in the
evolutionary individualism of Herbert Spencer and Leslie Stephen.
In the language of modern communitarianism, the moral self is seen
to be constituted through a community. There are no unencumbered
selves standing outside a community frame. There is thus no sense
that moral issues or moral vocabularies can be addressed independently of a community. Morality and politics are not invented, but
interpreted from within a particular community. We therefore read
off an existing tradition of moral discourse. The community is constituted by such internal pre-understandings.107 As F. H. Bradley argued,
the child is not born into a desert, but into a living world, a whole
which has a true individuality of its own, and into a system and order
which it is difficult to look at as anything else than an organism the
tender care that receives and guides him is impressing on him habits,
habits, alas not particular to himself, and the icy chains of universal
custom are hardening themselves round his cradled life.108 The community thus represents what Hegel called objective mind. As Hegel
argued, the individual can be viewed as part of an ethical substance
that consists of laws and powers,109 where these substantial determinations are duties which are binding on the will of the individual.110
Agents place the rules of the communal ethos before themselves. The
community is quite simply a larger and more systematic whole, containing sedimented rules and social functions, which most humans
assimilate and posit to themselves.
Conclusion

This chapter has aimed to show how, during the nineteenth and early
twentieth century, aspects of German philosophy became an intellectual refuge for those students, initially in English and Scottish universities, who sought to escape from the stultifying atmosphere of an
all-pervading empiricism, naturalism and individualism, which some
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British Idealism

commentators still see as a more indigenous form of philosophizing

to Britain. In fact, it is important to realize that the present generation of philosophers in Britain, share a view of philosophy developed in the 1940s and 1950s which, constructed their own vision and
indeed myths, against the background of Idealism, a movement
which they have often tried in crude ways to dismiss. This has affected
the understanding and genuine scholarly appraisal of British Idealism
until the present day.
The key German Idealists admired in Britain were Kant, Fichte,
Hegel and subsequently Lotze. Schelling was probably less influential, although nonetheless still deeply admired. One important aspect
of their thought was its sheer range; their philosophical interests
(and overall systems) encompassed religion, art, poetry, literature
and science, as well as covering, in their unique way, all the more
conventional components of philosophy. This fact alone broadened
their appreciative audience in Britain. Such comprehensive rich systems of thought, when practised and thought through, actually
responded very effectively and positively to many of the deep problems and anxieties that affected late nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury Britain. The integuments of the Idealist theory were used to
address issues in morality, politics, religion, science and arts. As we
have stressed, this did not mean that British Idealism simply blindly
adopted German Idealism. On the contrary, they rigorously adapted
often severely modified and blended Idealism with existing components of extant British philosophical thinking. Thus, the latent traditions were not abandoned, but often subtly integrated. This makes
British Idealism different in substance and style from German
Idealism and also makes it stand out as a unique and idiosyncratic
philosophical movement. We have also stressed as will become
clearer in subsequent chapters that British Idealism itself was not
one thing. It was a constellation of broad-ranging, sometimes philosophically antagonistic components. Again, critics often miss this
simple fact of internal complexity. What British Idealism tried to
achieve was a counterbalance to the one-sidedness of certain existing
norms and philosophies. In so doing, many stressed the intricate, but
ultimately spiritual aspect of reality, although what was precisely
meant by Spirit needs to be clarified.
We have aimed briefly to illustrate this latter point in the manner
they responded to two profound issues of late-nineteenth-century
Britain evolution and utilitarian moral theory. In subsequent
36

The Coming of British Idealism

chapters, we will explore and illuminate the metaphysical and epistemological dimensions of British Idealist thinking; its unique and
influential reading of ethical and political philosophy; its distinctive
attempt to practice philosophical thinking; and finally, its idiosyncratic
approach to international affairs.

37

Chapter two

Absolute Idealism and Its Critics

Introduction

As was stressed in the previous chapter, British Idealism was not one
thing. In this chapter, we therefore distinguish between Absolute
Idealism and Personal Idealism, giving first the basic world view of
Absolutism, followed by the critique that Personal Idealists brought
to bear on it. Aspects of both are further elaborated, as we explore
some of the Realist rebuttals and Idealist responses.
Absolute Idealism

The sheer enormity of the scale on which Absolute Idealism operates

the universe is its subject matter opens it to a great deal of misunderstanding and confusion over its central tenets. Its comprehensiveness
and inclusivity are not only a virtue, but also the source of its problems.1 When Absolute Idealism tries to characterize the totality of
experience, it is indicted for a multitude of crimes. It is accused of
losing God in man, or man in God; dissolving things into thought,
and matter into spirit; abolishing all right and wrong; and conflating
truth and error. In the face of such wild accusations, Henry Jones
defended Idealism in terms of its refusal to make simplified contrasts
and demanded that justice be done to the complexity of reality. Its
achievement was to hold difference as difference within its own unity,
and to be able to manifest its own nature only in a self-externalizing
process, and by fortifying its opposites against itself.2
The British Idealists found in German philosophy two ideas that were
to form the basis of their critiques of empiricist and sensationalist theories of knowledge. First, they contended that understanding is always
38

Absolute Idealism and Its Critics

contextual, and that which is to be understood has to be related to wider

terms of reference, until ultimately the whole of experience or the
Absolute is implicated. Put simply, there can be no isolated entities, facts
or individuals. All have to be understood in their essential relatedness.
This has been termed monism, although it is an internally complex
monism. Ultimately, experience is an undifferentiated unity that has
become fragmented. For Idealism, what needs explaining is not the
unity but how it has become differentiated into all of the elements with
which we are familiar.
Secondly, the historical method, or emanation, as it was known in
the context of the evolution debate, was their preferred mode of
explanation, although what they meant by it differed among them.
Unlike positivism, or the Realism that was to revolt against it,
Idealism did not privilege natural science above other forms of
knowledge. The historical method had the merit of identifying the
genesis of a problem and its evolutionary development as pointing
the way to its resolution. Thirdly, unlike empiricists, utilitarians and
Realists, the Idealists denied the possibility of a reality independent
of mind. This has often led to a great deal of confusion and the accusation that they believed that nothing exists except mind. They did
not think that a table, for example, ceased to exist as soon as you turn
away from it. Whatever the carpenter says of the table is likely to be
empirically true, about the type of wood; the run of the grain; the
joints that hold it together and its function. The carpenters understanding does not exhaust what is to be said or understood about the
table. The scientist, the artist, the historian will all appreciate different dimensions of it, and in that respect it ceases to be the object that
the carpenter sees. It is not that reality is independent of mind, but it
is dependent on mind, because without it reality would be unintelligible. Similarly, the Idealist contention that nature and spirit are continuous is often misunderstood as meaning that nature is intelligent,
differing only in degree from mind or spirit. It would be absurd to
suggest that water or rocks think, and no British Idealist ventures to
suggest this. It is not that nature is intelligent, but that it is intelligible
only to mind. Without mind, it just as well does not exist.
Fourthly, because there is no object independent of the experiencing
mind, truth cannot be a matter of correspondence. The truth of a statement does not rely on how closely it corresponds to an external reality
because that reality is integrally related to mind and dependent on it for
its intelligibility. There are two principal versions of the correspondence
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BRITISH IDEALISM

theory of truth. The one version requires that one of the corresponding
entities must be a mind that makes a judgement about an object, and
believes that it has formulated a true description of its object. The
description is said to correspond with what it describes. The alternative
version contends that two separate factors are believed to correspond
for a mind. The mind deems one of the two factors as a true statement
about, or representation of the other.3
Instead, for the Idealist, it is the world of ideas, or broader context
of propositions and ideas that provide the reference point for the
truth of a statement. The coherence of a proposition, in relation to
the world of ideas in which it belongs, is what determines its truth.
Each judgement is not in isolation the affirmation or denial of a
proposition, but instead the invocation of a whole world of experience in the designation of a fact. A fact is not something given in
experience. It is a conclusion reached. All thoughts are related to the
whole and implicate each other. Truth and meaning derive their
authority from the whole to which each judgement belongs.
Both Realism and Idealism posited forms of propositional logic, but
the truth of the propositions rests on different criteria: in the former on
an independent reality, and in the latter on the coherence of a world of
ideas. R. G. Collingwood later criticized the propositional logic of both
in formulating his response to the contention of logical positivism, particularly as formulated by A. J. Ayer, that metaphysical propositions are
meaningless nonsense. He contended that metaphysical statements are
not propositions at all, they are absolute presuppositions upon which
knowledge is built, and the question of truth and falsity does not apply
to them. Truth relates only to the contention whether such presuppositions were absolutely presupposed.4
Fifthly, there were differences among Idealists over the level at
which experience begins. F. H. Bradley, for example, argued that we
have experience of the undifferentiated whole, and this he calls sentient experience.5 However, it is at the level of thought that proper
experience begins in the process of differentiating or mutilating the
unity. Differentiation requires abstraction and mutilates the reality
that belongs to the one and indivisible whole. Abstraction is nevertheless necessary. Without abstraction we would not be able even to
distinguish between the I and the Thou.
T. H. Green and Michael Oakeshott, however, reject the idea of
sentient experience because in their view all experience is thought.
Nevertheless, Bradley, Green and Oakeshott agree that to think at all
40

Absolute Idealism and Its Critics

is to judge, that is, to differentiate a this from a that. Oakeshott, for

example, contends that pain is not simply a sensation. We are aware
of it in thought or judgement. This view is exemplified in the statement there is no experiencing which is not thought, and consequently no experience which is not thought, and consequently no
experience which is not a world of ideas.6 The implication of this for
R. G. Collingwood was that all history is the history of thought,7
by which he meant all human artefacts are the product of thought
and the result of intelligible, intelligent and purposive practices.
Sixthly, the Idealists viewed the world of experience modally. This
is the implication of beginning with the principle of unity, or the
undifferentiated whole, and then having to account for the variety of
experience. How the modes arise and their relationship to each other
and the Absolute or the whole of experience is a matter of contestation among the Idealists. What is important, however, is that the
modes are the arbiters of truth and falsity. It is not only their coherence that gives rise to the veracity of the truthfulness of our statements, but also their comprehensiveness.
It was Bradley who most systematically formulated this view of
the criterion of truth as the union of coherence and comprehensiveness. The more self-subsistent, consistent and complete a mode, or
world of ideas, the greater its share of truth. Truth and reality for
Bradley are a matter of degree. Bradley contends truths are true,
according as it would take less or more to convert them into reality.8
Because these worlds or modes of experience fall short of the
Absolute, or reality as a whole, the ideas that we are compelled to use
are all more or less imperfect in varying degrees.9
This does not mean that we arbitrarily create our own truths. The
social character of experience requires that we are inducted into
these worlds, which delineate sense from nonsense. Broadly speaking, the material presented by each world is given and compulsory,
and out of my power to change. In other words, reality is not what I
happen to think: it is what I am obliged to think.10 While all of these
appearances of reality are defective, they are nevertheless useful, and
hold sway in their own domain. Nature, Bradley argues, has little
reality, but it is nevertheless an ideal construction required by science, and it is a necessary working fiction.11 We have no alternative
outside philosophy but to accept the appearances that, in relation to
the whole of experience, are unintelligible. Each mode of understanding is at liberty to use whatever ideas serve its purpose best, and
41

BRITISH IDEALISM

within its limits each must be allowed the liberty to pursue its own
business.12
Finally, the relationship between philosophy and the modes has
implications for the relationship between theory and practice. The
issue revolves around whether philosophy, having interrogated and
exposed as wanting the various claims to truth presented by the
modes, has anything to contribute to the way each conducts its
affairs. We can detect among the Idealists a variety of points of view,
one of which is shared with Realism.
Hegel was of the view that philosophy comes onto the scene after
the event, and can contribute nothing to the activities it interrogates.
Hence the infamous line: When philosophy paints its grey on grey,
then has a form of life grown old. The owl of Minerva takes flight
only with the coming of dusk.13 This view is embraced by both
Bradley and Oakeshott.
The opposite of this view of philosophys relation to practice is
expressed in the title of Henry Joness book Idealism as a Practical
Creed.14 Here philosophy does have a role in exposing the deficiencies and contributing to the better conduct of the activities it criticizes. Edward Caird, Joness mentor and teacher, and Collingwood
exemplify this position. Collingwood, for example, argues that all
problems arise out of practice and return to practice in their resolution.15 A synthesis of both positions is put forward by Bosanquet
and Green. Here, it is acknowledged that the business of philosophy
is distinct from the activities in which practitioners of various kinds
engage, but the latter often encounter difficulties and perplexities,
the resolution of which may be contributed to by the former.
The Absolute versus the Personal

When L. T. Hobhouse criticized the metaphysical theory of the state,

which he attributed in different degrees, to the Absolute Idealists, but
in particular to G. W. F. Hegel and his English follower Bernard
Bosanquet, he in fact was complaining about the idea of a unity
above and beyond the individuals who comprise it, and which has a
will of its own; the capacity to deliberate; and to act morally. More
pejoratively, it was referred to as the God State. The danger of such
a diminution of the individual and subordination to a higher entity
was, in Hobhouses view, connected to both German militarism and
the conflict of the First World War.16
42

Absolute Idealism and Its Critics

A number of Idealists, while not in full sympathy with Hobhouses

attack, had many years before expressed concerns about the almost
complete absorption of the individual in the Absolute.17 These critics
of Idealism became known as the Personal Idealists. Among them is
a good deal of internal variety. The most prominent Personal or
Subjective Idealists were Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison, Hastings
Rashdall, Henry Sturt, W. R. Boyce Gibson, the American Brand
Blanshard and the idiosyncratic James M. E. McTaggart, who taught
the latter day Absolute Idealist Michael Oakeshott.
Idealism was consistent in emphasizing that there could be no
thought without a thinker, and no thinker without thought. The
point at which they parted company was over its implications for
the idea of the finite individual. The question of finite individuality
was at the heart of both Absolute and Personal Idealism, and was
a central metaphysical concern. The individual in Bradley and
Bosanquet is used in a logical sense. It signifies a comprehensive
unity, or totality, self-subsistent and coherent, implying non-contradiction. Only reality as a whole, the Absolute, possesses this
character. Bradleys scepticism is most evident in his treatment of
the finite individual and personality. The individual only exists
through an intellectual construction.18 This ultimate reality, or the
Absolute, is beyond our comprehension in discursive thought. The
individual self the person is not real, but merely an appearance.
The finite individual, or self, exhibits a greater degree of reality
only insofar as it contains within itself more of the total Universe,
that is, insofar as it becomes transmuted, comprehensive and selfconsistent. By implication, this means that a self becomes more of
a self to the extent to which it becomes less distinct from other
selves.19 The individual self is more real and less abstract as part of
a community. The idea of an isolated individual is thus regarded as
an unsustainable abstraction, and the claim that only this individual is real is a mere fancy. A person is a person only insofar as
that person is what others are. A person is simply not real outside of a community. Self-realization is the realization of something beyond the self, and so must be called a universal life.20
Bradley provocatively maintained: There is nothing which, to
speak properly, is individual or perfect, except only the Absolute.21
Individuals or persons have value only insofar as they express or
manifest features of the Absolute. Bosanquet summed up the argument in contending: All the great contents of the developed human
43

BRITISH IDEALISM

self truth, beauty, religion and social morality are all of them
but modes of expression of the Ideal self.22
Caird and Jones, fellow Absolute Idealists, while agreeing with the
monistic unity of the whole, do not subscribe to the more extreme
views of Bradley and Bosanquet. The Scotsman and the Welshman
give much more emphasis to the reality of the appearances. For Caird
and Jones, the unity embodies the principle of rationality, which is
expressed in and through all the differentiations of the whole. Jones
argues that while Idealism repudiates the psychological method of
beginning a philosophical inquiry from the inner life of the subject,
it cannot do without that inner life. Activity, emotions and purposes
are all incorporated, but what is denied is any ultimate distinction
between subject and object. They are merely distinctions within a
real ontological unity. This ontological unity, Jones argues, is not
incompatible with their equally real difference.23 Joness problem
with Bradley and Bosanquet was that their conception of the
Absolute was too static and monistic, impelling them to ignore (what
Jones took to be) essential differences. In direct criticism of Bradley,
Jones contends: A unity which in transcending the differences obliterates them is not their unity. A unity which becomes itself unknowable, or lies beyond the reach of predication, holds no differences
together, but sinks itself into an empty affirmation of the all-in-allness of everything.24 For Jones, the Absolute is a unity in difference,
and Idealists should avoid putting all the stress on unity and infinity
and by implication relegating all claims to finitude.
The debate reached its zenith in1918 at a meeting of the Aristotelian
Society, which addressed the question: Do finite individuals possess
a substantive or an adjectival mode of being?25 The Personal Idealists
differed from the Absolutists over the issue of the denial of the distinction between subject and object. They feared that denying the
distinction put the self at risk of being completely absorbed into the
Absolute.
It is the problem of finite individuality that Michael Oakeshott is
still grappling with throughout his 1933 book Experience and its
Modes. He does not ask what is real in a mode of experience. Instead
he asks what in each is an individual or a thing. It is in the practical
mode that we hang on most tenaciously to the idea of the autonomous self or person. In practical life, as in other modes, the thing, or
the individual, is designated and presupposed, not defined.
Completeness is not the criterion of designating the individual, but
44

Absolute Idealism and Its Critics

instead the individual is designated by what is separate and selfcontained. The practical self, the person, is the creation of practical
thought and is presupposed inall action. The postulate or presupposition of the self is self-determination, which entails freedom that
itself requires no demonstration, because it, by definition, belongs to
the practical self. To reject the principle of self-determination, and
the implication of freedom is to deny the world of practice, and its
foundational postulate, namely, the separateness and uniqueness of
the individual. The individual in practical life is just as much an
abstraction, an arrest or modification of experience, as the individual, or thing, presupposed inall the other modes.26
Andrew Seth was the first of the British Idealists to voice concerns
about the implications for the individual of Absolutism. These concerns were developed by Seth and the Personal Idealists.27 In 1888,
Seth indicated his central concerns. The defect in Hegel, Seth contends, is that he treats the individual simply as a universal or perceptive consciousness, a spectator of things and merged into the
universal, occupying a universal standpoint, indifferent to the issue
as to whether it is my Ego, or another, that comprehends the world.
Seth complained: a philosophy which goes no further than this in its
treatment of the individual, leaves untouched what we may call the
individual in the individual those subjective memories, thoughts,
and plans which make each of us a separate soul.28 Personal Idealism,
as such, thus begins dissatisfied with the place of individual personality in the post-Kantian Hegelian programme.
Seths Hegelianism and Personality launched a sustained attack on
the Hegelian system and its assumptions, inaugurating the beginnings of Personalism, or Personal Idealism, in Britain. Seth is important because it was only 4 years after he edited the manifesto of
British Idealism, Essays in Philosophical Criticism, with R. B.
Haldane, that he now questioned the metaphysical conclusions of
Absolute Idealists, leading the revolt against them in the name of
Personalism. Seth was particularly perturbed by the tendency within
Absolute Idealism to identify the human and divine self-consciousness. He maintained that: The radical error both of Hegelianism
and of the allied English doctrine I take to be the identification of
the human and the divine self-consciousness, or, to put it more
broadly, the unification of consciousness in a single Self.29
We should however exercise caution. There was still much in
Absolute Idealism with which he agreed. He subscribed, for example,
45

BRITISH IDEALISM

to the coherence theory of truth.30 He was also committed to the idea

of modality in experience, with an underlying unity and connectedness. The truth of anything, in his view, required knowledge of both
the process of its becoming and the end to be realized. There were
various names for this whole. Some call it Nature, or the Higher
Nature, including within itself humanity and human values. Others
might call it the Absolute or God. In addition, the finite individual,
for him, was not an isolated or atomized entity. It still depended for
its content on an objective system of reason. The individual was thus
inconceivable without society; philosophically, the individual was
organic, that is integral to a universal life. Seths argument is therefore that the individual cannot possibly be regarded as self-contained
in relation to that life, for such self-containedness would mean sheer
emptiness.31 The individual therefore has a universal nature within
the whole or universe in which souls are made. Andrew Seth PringlePattisons position is in these respects is almost indistinguishable
from Absolute Idealism. It would be unwise to exaggerate the differences between the Personalists and the Absolutists. Indeed,
Personalists insisted on the continuity, rather than a complete break
with Absolutism. Sturt, for example, contended: Personal Idealism
is a development of the mode of thought which has dominated
Oxford for the last thirty years; it is not a renunciation of it.32
Seth also differentiated himself in the emphasis he gave to selfhood and the uniqueness of the finite individual. The individual
could not be regarded as a mere appearance of reality. The individual person is an experienced certainty, foundational to all action and
thought, and cannot be explained away. The Absolute therefore cannot negate the finite individual. To deny the reality of finite centres
was to deprive the entire superstructure of our experience of its
foundation.33 Seth went to great pains to reinforce, in the minds of
Idealists, the importance of the self in accounting for the nature of
experience. In discussing Kant, for example, Seth argues that the self
exists only through the world, and the world only through the self.
Self and the world are the same reality looked at from different
points of view. The basic unity, or identity, of reality can only be
grasped, however, from the point of view of the subject, or person.34
In Seths view, Absolute Idealism was therefore in danger of consigning the individual to insignificance.35
In general terms, the Personal Idealists identified Bradley and
Bosanquet as the greatest danger to the integrity of the self. Bradley
46

Absolute Idealism and Its Critics

was criticized for casting doubt on the usefulness of the idea of a

person in comprehending or understanding experience as a unity in
diversity. The Personalists also believed that Bradley was mistaken in
characterizing the absolute as unknowable, something beyond
human experience, which he refers to as mere appearance. Yet,
nonetheless, Bradley had done a great service to British Idealism, in
Seths view, in freeing it from its slavish imitation of Hegel. Bradley
was, however, still less than convincing in his explanations of how
contradictions would be resolved in the Absolute. All Bradley could
offer was the vague promise that differences were to be fused and
overcome. The question of how the multiplicity of selves and diversity of experience became a unity was avoided in the admission that
we do not know how, only that somehow they will.36
Personal Idealists still acknowledged that some exponents of
Absolute Idealism were closer to them than others. For example,
Henry Jones and Josiah Royce, in the view of Henry Sturt, were not
as guilty as Bradley and Bosanquet in consigning the individual to
oblivion. Both Sturt and Boyce Gibson contended that Personal
Idealism, of which they were proud to be exponents, was a development of, rather than a departure from, the Idealism of Green,
Bosanquet and Bradley. Boyce Gibson, following Rudolph Eucken,
contends the idea that the real is the rational is a central idea of
both Absolute and Personal Idealism. Personal Idealists, however,
view it from the point of view of the personal experiment.37 Absolute
and Personal Idealism had a common enemy in naturalism, but the
Personalists thought the Absolutists were deficient in two main respects.
First, the Absolutists criticized human experience, not from the vantage point of human experience itself, but from the visionary and
impractical standpoint of human nature.38 Secondly, the Absolutists
refused to give adequate recognition to volition in human nature.
J. M. E. McTaggart, a towering figure among Cambridge philosophers, was also a Personal Idealist and a critic of Absolute Idealism.
He immersed himself in metaphysical problems. McTaggart believed
that the individual had to be placed at the centre of philosophical
enquiry. The whole has to be understood from the standpoint of the
experiencing individual. He declared himself an ontological Idealist
because he believed that everything that exists is spiritual, but qualified this commitment by declaring that the content of spirit must fall
within a self, with no part falling within more than one self.39
Judgements about whether something is good, bad or worthy have
47

BRITISH IDEALISM

meaning ultimately only for the individual consciousness. Value neither consists in relations among individuals, nor in the whole that
they comprise. It is only by being one of the terms of the relation
that value has meaning. A person, who loves another, does not find
value or goodness residing in the relation, but in being one of those
related.40
Like Seth, McTaggart was inclined to the meticulous study and
criticism of Hegel. Hegel, in McTaggarts view, had better than any
philosopher before or after penetrated more deeply into the nature
of reality. Hegels mistake was to conceive the Absolute as the highest expression of philosophy. Philosophy may be the highest level of
human knowledge, McTaggart conceded, but not of reality. Reality
for him is a community of finite spirits and not one undifferentiated
whole. Individual minds and their contents comprise the ultimate
spiritual reality.
The Idealist Conception of Philosophy

Starting from the Hegelian principle of unity, the Absolute Idealists

take the purpose of philosophy to be the reconciliation of what the
modern age has divided and dispersed. They acknowledge all aspects
of human experience in the face of the dissolving tendency of the
times to separate and sever them from each other, rendering each a
mere abstraction. Edward Caird believed that the two pernicious tendencies facilitating such fragmentation were Subjective Idealism that
had infected British philosophy since the time of Berkeley, and the
philosophy that rejected this subjectivity, namely Realism and
Naturalism, which conceived everything as a mechanical system.41
The common belief among Absolute Idealists was that there is a
unity beneath all oppositions, which is capable of bringing about
reconciliation.
Contrary to nave caricatures of Idealism, it has no objection to any
of the distinctions and oppositions that enter into the theoretical and
practical consciousness of mankind, including distinguishing between
mind and matter. It denies, however, that there can be absolute differences or antagonism without rending the distinctions unintelligible. All
distinctions imply relations, and ultimately a unity inall things distinguished. Idealism refuses to admit that there is an unintelligible world,
a world that cannot be brought in relation to the intelligible.42 Because
this unity is such a fundamental presupposition of all consciousness,
48

Absolute Idealism and Its Critics

we rarely bring it to the surface of ordinary consciousness.43 It is a

fundamental postulate, a colligating hypothesis of understanding, or
what R. G. Collingwood later called an Absolute Presupposition of
rational thinking.44
Caird argues that when thinking is understood as the process by
which Spirit or God realizes itself, the subjective and objective are
not separated by ideas, but instead are the differentiations of the one
comprehensive unity. Philosophy facilitates a reconciliation of ourselves to ourselves and to the world, which entails the aspiration of
placing human life in the context of the universe.45 The whole of
experience is the reference point in terms of which to understand
each and any of its aspects. Caird sums up Hegels position thus: the
highest aim of philosophy is to reinterpret experience, in the light of
a unity which is presupposed in it, but which cannot be made conscious or explicit until the relation of experience to the thinking self
is seen.46
Implicit in the arguments of the Absolute Idealists (with some
notable exceptions) is a philosophy of history in which there is pattern and meaning to human history, exhibited in an observable tendency towards greater unity and organization. They acknowledge
that thoughts inall their forms and categories are inextricably linked
to each other, and to invoke one or other exclusively for the explanation of experience is inevitably to commit an error.47 The early
Andrew Seth contended that Absolute Idealism deprives the parts of
their purported independence and substantiality. Justifiably so, however, in that each member of the system is real, and holds its reality
as part of that system, as a part of the whole, which exists absolutely
and in its own right.48
The implication for philosophy of starting with the principle of
unity is that all dualisms are abstractions and must be transcended in
a synthesis. When the British Idealists address a substantive problem
they present two sides, a subjective and objective, the contradiction
between which is resolved in a synthesis.49 Oakeshott provides us
with an interesting exemplification of how the totality brings about
a synthesis. In discussing, for example, Hobbes he identifies three
traditions in political philosophy, which are dialectically related to
each other. They are the antithetical traditions of Reason and
Nature, and Will and Artifice, the deficiencies of which are transcended in the synthesis of Rational Will.50 Hobbess significance,
in Oakeshotts view, is that he began his enquiries with the human
49

BRITISH IDEALISM

will rather than law. It was an innovation followed by almost every

political philosopher since. However, the whole Epicurean tradition
to which Hobbes belonged lacked an adequate theory of volition.
The solution to the problem consisted in the union of a reconfigured
theory of natural law with the Epicurean theory of Hobbes. The
union is exemplified in such phrases as Rousseaus General Will, or
Hegels Rational Will, or Bosanquets Real Will.51
Idealism versus Realism

Idealists and neo-Idealists understand philosophy to be experience

self-critical of itself. We do not begin with a tabula rasa. The philosophers job is to analyse the given in experience. For Henry Jones, for
example, philosophy does not start from sentient or immediate experience, intuition or sceptical cogito. Philosophy begins with ordinary
experience reflective of itself. It starts with reality and reflects upon
it: philosophy is thus the reflective interpretation of human experience, it must accept the laws of experience as its own. Experience is
its starting point and whole datum.52 The starting point is not ignorance from which we progress to knowledge, but an understanding
of something that to some extent we already know. Philosophy is the
getting to understand better something that is already understood.
Or as Dilthey puts it: in order to understand, one must have already
understood.53 Getting to understand something better does not
mean getting to know more about it, but coming to understand it
differently and better.54 Bosanquet elaborates and suggests that philosophy cannot tell you anything that you do not already know.
Instead, it tells you the significance of what you know.55 Oakeshott
formulates this philosophical principle in the following terms: there
is no such thing as a transition from mere ignorance to complete
knowledge: the process is always one of coming to know more fully
and more clearly what is in some sense already known.56
Realists ostensibly portray philosophical analysis in the same
terms. The similarity is, however, deceptive. L. Susan Stebbing, a follower of the Cambridge School and an exponent of its method, contended in 1932 that metaphysical analysis is discovering what it is
precisely which we already in some sense knew.57 The method of
British Idealists and Cambridge Realists were nevertheless quite different. The former employ the regressive, while the latter the
decompositional method.
50

Absolute Idealism and Its Critics

Regressive analysis is concerned more with the postulates, principles

and presuppositions upon which, or from which, conclusions are generated. It is a method whose roots reach back to ancient Greek geometry.
Philosophy for the Idealists, because they begin with the principle of
unity, necessarily entails being aware of the assumptions that underpin
the differentiations into which this unity has fragmented.58
The Cambridge Realists take what is given and break it down into
its structure and components. G. E. Moores Common Sense philosophy is an example of this method. Moore argues that there is a
common stock of propositions, which most rational people know
and which provide the background to our reflections, both ordinary
and philosophical. Examples include, at some time in the past I was
born; I have occupied different locations on this earth at different
times relative to other humans; and, there are many live humans
populating the earth. Such propositions, Moore contends, are indisputable.59 His method consisted in defending philosophical claims
with reference to our conceptual intuitions. In epistemology, he
famously attempted to refute scepticism by claiming that we do have
knowledge of the external world. His proof consisted in suggesting,
here is one hand, and here is another, thus demonstrating knowledge
and certainty of the external world.60
The Cambridge of Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore and Ludwig
Wittgenstein transformed philosophical thinking. The modality
espoused by the Idealists was rejected in favour of the mathematical
and scientific certainty of empirical and analytical thinking.
Wittgenstein was regarded as equal to Einstein a genius, even a
messiah. John Maynard Keynes likened him to God. It was the
Wittgenstein of the Tractatus whom the Vienna Circle virtually deified. Its semi-official manifesto, Viewing the World Scientifically: The
Vienna Circle, identified Albert Einstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein and
Bertrand Russell for being the intellectual inspiration of the movement. It was, as far as Wittgenstein was concerned, faint praise and
he rejected the accolade.
Einstein was important because he denied that the laws of physics
could be deduced from first principles independent of observation.
Russells importance was that he was an uncompromising empiricist,
arguing that all our knowledge comes from experience. Rudolph
Carnap and Hans Hahn, of the Vienna Circle, were attracted to
Russell because of his application of logic to both mathematics and
language. Russell contended that the results of the sciences could not
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BRITISH IDEALISM

in general be imported into philosophy. The methods of the sciences,

however, most certainly could.
Russell, however, was John the Baptist in comparison with the
messiah Wittgenstein. Russell was the prophet who foretold the coming of Wittgenstein. Wittgensteins Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
was published in German in 1921. Moritz Schlick immediately
appreciated its originality, and in the mid 1920s, over the course of
almost a year, it was twice read out line by line and meticulously
scrutinized by the Vienna Circle.
The Vienna Circle derived its cohesiveness and strength of purpose from the unrelenting belief in the veracity of the idea of the
application of scientific method to philosophy. They contended that
philosophy, as well as every other discipline, had everything to gain
from logical rigour. In this, the Logical Positivists were rather more
strident than their Cambridge counterparts. The powerful appeal of
the Vienna Circle to such young philosophers as A. J. Ayer was its
simple and basic creed that there were only two types of valid statement. One type is analytic statements, which were true by definition,
for example, the deductive reasoning of syllogisms or the propositions of geometry. The other type of valid statement is empirical,
derived from observation, inductive and open to verification. The
famous verification principle determined the truth or falsity of a
statement. A statement such as the sun rises in the west, although
false, is meaningful because it is open to verification. All other statements are meaningless because they are matters of opinion. Thus,
theology, ethics, metaphysics and all other normative statements
were excluded from philosophy, giving philosophy the important
task of sharpening and clarifying the concepts of scientists. The
Vienna Circle understood Wittgenstein to be saying something similar about verification in the Tractatus. His point, however, was more
subtle. His differentiation of propositions that could be said, such as
those of the scientist, and those that should be unsaid, such as those
of ethics, was not to conclude that statements of the latter kind were
nonsense. Indeed, for Wittgenstein the more interesting and important
category was propositions about which nothing could be said.
Such differences between Vienna and Cambridge paled into insignificance when confronted with philosophical Idealism, with its roots
in Kant and Fichte, finding its definitive statement in Hegel.
Idealisms emphasis upon mind and spirit, instead of science and
symbolic logic, was anathema to the members of the Vienna Circle
52

Absolute Idealism and Its Critics

who denounced it as unscientific, muddled, mystical and deliberately obtuse.

Furthermore, Realism and Logical Positivism rejected Idealist
logic. When H. H. Joachim attacked the Realist correspondence theory of truth in1906, he referred to current logic. There was no mistaking to what he was referring. It was the philosophical study of
thought and knowledge associated with Bradley and Bosanquet, the
legacy of Hegel inherited by Lotze and Sigwart, and passed on to
modern-day Idealists. By 1939, when he published the second edition
of The Nature of Truth, the idea of current logic had become much
more ambiguous. It was then seen not so much as a branch of philosophy, but more as a science of symbols and forms severed from
what was symbolized or formed. This was evident in symbolic or
formalistic logic and those aspects of Logical Positivism that went
under the name of the theory of logical analysis.61
In this context, both R. G. Collingwoods Speculum Mentis and
Michael Oakeshotts Experience and its Modes constituted direct
challenges to Realism and Logical Positivism. Collingwood and
Oakeshott, like Bradley, Bosanquet and Joachim, took logic to be
the philosophical study of thought and knowledge, and this necessarily entailed interrogating the modes, or arrests in what Joachim
called the timeless and complete actuality.62 Collingwoods forms
of experience and Oakeshotts modes gave validity to types of knowledge other than scientific, and indeed in Collingwoods case made
science subordinate to history and philosophy, and in Oakeshotts
case made science co-equal with the other modes, and merely an
arrest in experience in comparison with philosophy. In a dismissive
allusion to the Logical Positivists, Oakeshott rebuts their reverence
for science. He remarked:
it is scarcely to be expected, in these days, that we should not be
tempted to take up the idea of philosophy as, in some sense, the
fusion of the sciences, the synthesis of the sciences or the scientia scientiarum. Yet, what are the sciences that they must be
accepted as the datum, and as a datum not to be changed, of valid
knowledge? And if we begin with the sciences, can our conclusions be other or more than merely scientific?.63
The many followers of Wittgenstein and analytic philosophy were
disdainful of the ascendency of what they regarded the metaphysical
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BRITISH IDEALISM

nonsense of Idealism, still represented in Cambridge by McTaggart,

Sorley and the young Oakeshott. The groups tended to avoid each
other. Oakeshott, for example, did not attend the Moral Science
Club seminars where Wittgenstein dominated in the early 1930s. The
Cambridge Realists had a good deal of respect for what they regarded
the more rigorous of the Idealists at Oxford, particularly Bradley
and Joachim who proved to be formidable opponents. Bosanquetalso
defends Idealism against Realist critics such as Russell, Alexander,
Whitehead and Moore.64 R. G. Collingwood developed his own distinctive position by attempting to refute the fundamental claims of
the Realists at both Cambridge and Oxford.65 The charge that
Collingwood made against positivism was that it misconceived the
nature of metaphysics.66
Although some of the Idealists, including Bradley and Oakeshott,
did not wish to suggest that theory and practice were intimately connected, others did and objected most ferociously to what they
regarded as the moral abdication of Realists from social responsibility. For many of the British Idealists, as we will see in Chapter 4,
philosophy was a weapon in the social and political debates of late
Victorian and early Edwardian Britain. The social responsibility of
the philosopher was to provide a practical guide to life. Both Absolute
and Personal Idealists could agree on this. In 1907, W. R. Boyce
Gibson, who later took up a chair in Melbourne University, argued
that philosophy had demonstrated its value in economics, sociology
and education, and was in the process of enlightening religion on the
philosophic power of the categories of love, communion and redemption, which it was rescuing from the interpretations of theology.67
In addition, Idealists objected to the privileging by Realists of
natural science as the authentic route to knowledge. McTaggart
denied Russells contention that the results and methods of the sciences could be usefully employed by philosophy. McTaggart agreed
that metaphysics can offer us no practical guidance, but for quite different reasons from the Realists. For the Realists, metaphysical statements were simply not verifiable. McTaggart contended that a
persons views on practical matters are largely unaffected by his or
her metaphysical beliefs. People who believe in God, immortality or
optimism, seem to act no differently in moral terms from those who
do not believe in them.68 However, McTaggart, unlike Russell, did
not dismiss the practical relevance of metaphysics altogether. In Our

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Absolute Idealism and Its Critics

Knowledge of the External World, for example, Russell argued we will

be disappointed if we think that philosophy can satisfy our mundane
desires. While it renounces practical contamination, philosophy can
nevertheless help us understand general aspects of the world and the
logical analysis of familiar but complex things.69 McTaggart, however, contends that Metaphysics has a great deal of practical value,
but not as a guide to conduct. Its value is in providing the reasons for
why we hold some of our theories to be true metaphysics may give us
considerable comfort. A belief in the truth of certain theories may
profoundly affect our happiness. It is much more likely that a belief
that all is well with the world leads to happiness, while a belief in the
opposite brings misery. This is manifestly obvious when we witness
the intense practical importance of our beliefs on the problems of
religion.70
The sorts of questions that McTaggart and other Idealists asked
would for Realists simply be inadmissible, because the answers were
not verifiable. In McTaggarts case, the questions included whether
God exists; whether the self survives physical death, and if so for
what reasons; whether good predominates over evil in the universe,
and if over time the ratio changes; and, whether what exists, particularly ourselves, have any purpose and value?
Both Bradley and Oakeshott could accept Russells denial of the
practical value of philosophy, and the irrelevance of the results of
the natural sciences to philosophy, but in sympathy with McTaggart,
they denied that the method of the sciences had any relevance to
philosophy. In addition, for Oakeshott, philosophy has no positive
contribution to make to science, or indeed to any of the modes of
experience, including practical life. It is the business of philosophy,
both Bradley and Oakeshott argued, to understand what is. Moral
philosophy has to understand morals, not make them or provide a
blueprint for making them.71
Conclusion

This chapter has provided an indication of the main philosophical

and metaphysical elements within British Idealism. In so doing, it
has examined certain internal debates within Idealism itself, particularly that between Absolute and Personal Idealisms. It then moved to
elaborate on certain elements characterizing the Idealist conception

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BRITISH IDEALISM

of philosophy. Finally, it turned to a brief critical overview of the

debates between the Idealists and various forms of Realism and
Naturalism to a much lesser extent. In the next chapter, we move the
discussion to a cognate issue, which is the role and place of modality
in British Idealist philosophical argument.

56

Chapter three

Monism and Modality

Introduction

We saw in the previous chapter how Absolutism, the dominant form

of Idealism, viewed experience holistically. The concrete totality of
experience as a consequence posed for them not an epistemological
question, such as how mind attaches itself to an external world, but
the ontological question of the conditions of our understanding,
that is, how the undifferentiated whole became differentiated into all
of the worlds of ideas, through which we come to know the world. In
other words, Idealism recognizes the conditionality of our understanding, and much of the philosophical enterprise is concerned with
the identification and interrogation of those conditions. It is this feature of Idealism the right to use whatever ideas work best that
was to prove attractive to Pragmatism, which is, in some ways, a
development of aspects of Idealist arguments.
In this chapter, we explore the implications of this philosophical
commitment in Idealism in general, and illustrate what is entailed by
examining the two principal views of how the modes are related to
each other and how they are related to the whole. Idealists such as
Hegel, Bosanquet, Bradley, Jones, Gentile and Collingwood viewed
the relationship of the modes in logical progression, each transcending the inadequacies of those that precede them, culminating in philosophy, or absolute experience, which has overcome all of the
contradictions in the modes or forms of experience. The argument
was elaborated into a full-blown theory by Michael Oakeshott,
namely, that the modes were all similar modifications or arrests in
experience, none of which was superior to the others, and all sovereign in their own domain. They were autonomous in relation to each
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British Idealism

other, but related in falling short of the Absolute, which is the whole
of experience.
Idealism and Modality

There is a common core of ideas concerning modality shared by

Idealists. All agree that there are different worlds of experience and
that each, in some way, falls short of reality and self-consistency, in
that each rests upon metaphysical postulates or presuppositions, or
assumptions, from which facts may be derived or inferred. Thus, F.
H. Bradleys first publication, The Presuppositions of Critical History
(1874), is an exploration of how in history facts are not merely
given in experience, but are conclusions or theories. Historical facts
are a matter of inference, and all inferences rest on presuppositions
grounded in absolute presuppositions.1 Bradleys concern is not to
explain what makes any fact, but what specifically constitutes a historical fact. Without such constitutive principles, nothing could
achieve the status of historical fact.2 These presuppositions, Bradley
argues, are formed by present experience. Something that is simply
inconceivable, and beyond our experience, cannot be the ground of
our assumptions from which historical facts are inferred. It is beyond
our experience, for example, that a person can be in two places at
once, or can be both dead and alive simultaneously. Inferences drawn
from such assumptions would jar against the experience of the world
as we know it.3
Bosanquet shares the same conception of philosophy. He asks
himself what a philosophical enquiry implies. He contends that an
object understood through different conceptual frameworks is not in
any real sense the same thing. A flower is a different thing when
understood by the botanist, chemist, or artist. Philosophy cannot
hope to compete with these specialists in their own terms. Instead,
the philosopher takes the flower, reveals its conditionality and determines its place and significance in the totality of experience: And
this we call studying it, as it is, and for its own sake, without reservation or presupposition.4 These were the terms that Oakeshott was
later to employ: Philosophical experience, I take to be experience
without presupposition, reservation, arrest or modification.5
Henry Jones developed similar ideas into a systematic theory, elements of which may be detected, often unacknowledged, in the new
generation of Idealists, Collingwood and Oakeshott, who exemplify
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Monism and Modality

the two principal versions of modality. Both writers were though

thoroughly familiar with Joness work. Jones contends that our metaphysical assumptions are not a matter of choice, but we can be conscious or unconscious of those we employ. All our judgements, Jones
maintains, rely upon assumptions. Each judgement is related and
integrated with a diversity of other judgements together comprising
some form of systematic unity. Each judgement resting upon a supposition is ultimately traceable to more fundamental and deep-rooted
assumptions. In practical life, for example, these assumptions will
add up to a general theory of life. For Jones, all of the modes by
which we conceive the world and its objects, including ethics, psychology, natural science, and even poetry, necessarily rest upon metaphysical assumptions. Metaphysical study is the exploration of such
assumptions.
The absolute presuppositions or postulates, that is, our most fundamental assumptions, serve to hold facts together. They are, for
him, colligating hypotheses, or ideas without which no system of
thought could get off the ground. They are not confined solely to
great systems of thought, such as those of Copernicus, Newton and
Darwin, but are employed whenever the puzzled mind extricates
itself from a difficulty 6 Every judgement we make is related to a
colligating hypothesis. In Jones view a presupposition is as natural
as our skin and as difficult to escape.7 Indeed, except for hypotheses,
facts and events would seem to us to be in no relation of any kind to
one another.8 These colligating hypotheses are not arbitrary. They
are suggested to the intellect by the world whose intelligibility we
seek. They are entertained only so long as the world of reality seems
to support them.
Jones distinguishes between relative hypotheses which seem to
shed light on certain occurrences, but which are clearly conditional
and open to question, and those which are fundamental and without
which the world as we know it would be a completely different place.
The latter, for Jones, are thus absolute hypotheses which we take to
be ontologically true, and like relative hypotheses are nevertheless
open to scrutiny, but their collapse has consequences much more farreaching. In relation to the moral life, for example, we assume that
human agents act purposively and are responsible for their actions,
therefore may be held to account for their wrongdoings. If we assume,
however, that all actions are fundamentally genetically determined,
our view of morality and human agency and responsibility would be
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British Idealism

radically different. Absolute hypotheses are conjectures or critical

guesses which are open to scrutiny, never ultimately provable, but
always on trial and liable to be rebutted or undermined. The more
facts a colligating hypothesis is unable to accommodate, the more
likely it is to be abandoned.
Clearly then Jones anticipates Karl Poppers criticism of induction
and his rejection of the verification principle associated with logical
positivism.9 Jones contends that a hypothesis is a conjecture on trial.
Its existence is threatened by every relevant fact which it cannot
explain10 and which finally, like R. G. Collingwoods constellations
of absolute presuppositions or Thomas Kuhns paradigms, become
supplanted and superseded by new hypotheses or paradigms. This
revolutionary kind of advance is illustrated most starkly in scientific endeavour when one hypothesis is substituted for another.11
But such changes are not confined to the world of science. As
Bosanquet argues: the history of thought shows certain leaps or
breaks in culture; when the human mind seems to open its eyes afresh
on a new platform, from which new point of view all its adjustments
have to be remade and its perceptions reanalysed.12
Jones teacher and mentor, Edward Caird, thus understood the
problem of philosophy as the examination of the conditional fragments of reality and the restoration of unity, that is, reconciling them
with the whole. We should not view the differentiated elements at
war with each other, nor suppose that the truth and solidarity of the
principles of one may be extended beyond its boundaries to compose
universal principles. If we extend the principles of natural science
beyond the material world and posit them as universal, we inevitably
reduce consciousness thought and will to the condition of physical phenomena, rendering their very existence an insoluble
problem.13
For McTaggart also metaphysics is the systematic study of the
ultimate nature of Reality.14 This enterprise entailed being critical
of its own assumptions. In addition, it would be critical of the validity of scientific conceptions of reality, without denying that, despite
their conditionality, they may nevertheless be compelling.15 Further,
Bradley in Appearance and Reality understands metaphysics in
exactly the same way. However, Collingwood sees more of a sense of
urgency in the problem of philosophy in his own day, attributing the
crisis of civilization to the detachment of the forms of experience
from one another and from the whole. He contends that our cure
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Monism and Modality

can only be their reunion in a complete and undivided life. Our task
is to seek for that life, to build up the conception of an activity which
is at once art, and religion, and science, and the rest.16 What therefore informs Collingwoods purpose is a belief that: All thought
exists for the sake of action and the enhancement of self-knowledge
resulting in a more free and vigorous practical life.17 In contrast, the
philosophical endeavour for Oakeshott is motivated by curiosity,
and the knowledge gained is for its own sake. Philosophy makes no
contribution to the better conduct of practical life.
For Collingwood, the ultimate purpose of philosophy is selfknowledge of the mind, a role that in his later work he increasingly
assigned to history. Self-knowledge is ultimately achievable by transcending the false dichotomies that each form of experience constructs for itself between the mind and external objects. The mind is
incapable of having immediate knowledge of itself. It knows itself
only by seeing its reflection in an external world. To accomplish this,
the mind creates or constructs external worlds. These worlds are
abstractions until the mind realizes that they are of its own creation.
In interrogating the claims of the different forms of experience, that
is, art, religion, science and history, the philosophical mind realizes
it has not been exploring an external world but tracing its own
lineaments in a mirror.18
Despite the radically different conceptions of the relationship
between theory and practice, both Oakeshott and Collingwood
examine the conditionality of the modes, explore their relation to
each other and establish their place in reality as a whole. For both
Bosanquet and Oakeshott understanding something for its own sake
did not mean understanding it in isolation. Philosophy had to reveal
its true position and relations with reference to all else that man can
do and can know.19 If we take politics as the focus of our understanding, for example, the task of philosophy, in Oakeshotts words,
is to establish the connections, in principle and in detail, directly or
mediately, between politics and eternity.20
In summary, one may say that the problem of philosophy in
Idealism is to identify and interrogate the different forms or modes
of experience; account for how they emerge out of the undifferentiated whole of experience; and, reconcile their differences into a unity.
This entails exploring the internal relations of the forms; the relations between each of the forms; and that between the forms and the
whole.
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British Idealism

The Linked Hierarchy of Modes

One of the principal ways of conceiving the relations between the

modes to each other and to the whole of experience is to place them
in a hierarchy in which each of the higher modes embodies a greater
degree of reality, or the generic essence of the whole, taking up into
themselves the positive in what the lower has to offer.
The background for this general Idealist interest lay within the
structures of Hegels general philosophy. For Hegel mind is in its
very act only apprehending itself, and the aim of all genuine science
is just this, that Mind shall recognise itself in everything in heaven
and earth. An out-and-out Other does not exist for Mind.21 Reality
is therefore understood as the gradual development of Mind, in
terms of its self-grasp. Speculative Idealism, as a philosophy, is thus
understood by Hegel as the gradual effort of working progressively
through levels and categories, to intellectually and practically attain
a more adequate conceptual grasp of the whole of reality.
Consciousness always appears differently modified according its
object. All rational beings are moving gradually along this path of
discovery. The role of philosophy becomes a painstaking systematic
exposition of categories and forms of consciousness. Each category
is examined as an existential possibility in the process of the gradual
evolution of consciousness. The overall structure of Hegels system
is outlined in full in his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences.
Reality is there revealed gradually in the rich content of the sciences.
The largest sequence of development here is through logic, nature
and spirit. The final moment of Hegels system, in Absolute Mind, is
when consciousness grasps itself, or Mind makes itself fully known
to itself, as mediated through art, religion and philosophy.
In Bosanquets view, philosophical understanding entails revealing
the rank and significance of its objects in the totality of experience
as a whole.22 Examples of this type of philosophical activity range
from Hegel to Gentile and Croce and beyond to Collingwoods linked
hierarchy of overlapping forms of experience. Such a conception of
the philosophers calling required demonstrating how each mode
attempts unsuccessfully to achieve complete coherence, because it
embodies internal contradictions. In overcoming these contradictions, each mode or form of experience brings into being a higher
form of experience that transcends and transforms the defective
mode, taking it up into itself, while at the same time generating new
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Monism and Modality

contradictions, which themselves call into being a higher mode in

which they become resolved. The modes or forms are logically, if not
temporally, related.
British Idealists, especially Bernard Bosanquet and J. A. Smith,
were familiar with developments in Idealism on the continent. Gentile
was a significant force at the turn of the twentieth century, and the
foremost exponent of actualism. The Idealism of Gentile was
appealing to R. G. Collingwood because of his denial of anything
outside of experience and because of his belief in the self-creating
capacity of the mind. Gentile had attempted to overcome the mind/
object dualism by relying, to some extent, upon Berkeleys radically
subjective view of experience. Gentile denied though Bradleys claim
that we come into contact with the Absolute, in its undifferentiated
form, at the level of sentient experience, prior to its mutilation by
thought. Gentile rejected the very idea that the mind apprehended
something external to itself. He contended that: there is no theory, no
contemplation of reality, which is not at the same time action and
therefore a creation of reality.23
Like all the Absolute Idealists, Gentile begins with the principle of
unity, contending that the mind differentiates itself into the multiplicity of the things with which we are familiar. Mind thus begins
with a subjective moment in the process of self-realization by asserting itself through art. Through religion, Mind asserts its objective
moment. Self-knowledge of the mind, which is knowledge itself,
entails the mind asserting itself in a synthesis of the subjective and
objective modes. Knowledge itself is expressed triadically. Scientific
activity is the objective or questioning moment of the mind; history
is the subjective or answering moment.24 Each of the modes art,
religion, science, and history in itself is unsatisfactory, because
each is one-sided and requires insights from the others to augment
its vision. The Absolute synthesis is achieved only in philosophy. The
unsatisfactory assertions of reality are interpreted by philosophy
and assigned places in the unity of the whole. In conceiving history,
not as an object which stands outside the subject, but as a unity created in the act of thinking, philosophy and the history of philosophy
become one.25
A similar intellectual exercise was undertaken in 1924 by an
admirer of Gentile, who attempted to reconcile his views with those
of Vico, Croce and de Ruggiero, namely, R. G. Collingwood.
Collingwood was drawn to the actualism of the early Gentile, whose
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British Idealism

work was subsequently tainted because of his association with fascism. Collingwood, however, was critical of Gentiles position from
the start. In an unpublished manuscript of 1920, the Libellus de
Generatione, Collingwood refers to Gentiles dialectic of pensante
(the act of thinking) and pensato (the content of thought). For
Gentile the pensante is outside time in that it creates pensato. Pensato
is the content of thought and the product of pensante, but always
happens in time. Collingwood thought that Gentiles philosophy suffered from the same defect as Spinozas, namely that of identifying
pensante with the pure act of thought, reducing all experience to
thought, and in particular philosophical thought. In1923, however,
Collingwood was more favourably disposed. The mind that originates change, Collingwood contended, is at once inside and outside
of time. Collingwood argues: as the source and ground of change, it
will not be subject to change; while on the other hand, as undergoing
change through its own free act, it will exhibit change.26
Collingwood gave even greater emphasis to history than Gentile.
He maintained that reality is history, and that history is the knowing
mind conscious of itself. It is because mind is self-conscious of this
history that it has a history at all. The importance of Gentiles philosophy in this respect was his formulation of a metaphysic of
knowledge, which never lost sight of the question: How we come to
know what we know?27
As Collingwoods thought developed, he came to view Gentile as
little more than a fossilized or arthritic version of Croce.28
Collingwood objects to the implication in Gentiles thought of an
eternal present that creates its own past. This, for Collingwood, was
nothing more than an abstraction, which fails to take the past up
into itself, and instead produces a desiccated past of itself.
Collingwood was concerned that in concentrating his attention on
the epistemological problems of the historian in creating the past
and forming a perspective on it, Gentile neglected to address the
relation of the perspectives to each other. This rendered Gentiles
thought for Collingwood, a form of subjective Idealism that wholly
overlooked the problem of development, with the result that Fascist
thought, egocentric and subjective, can rightly be called by Croce
antistoricismo.29
Even though he owed a considerable debt to Gentile, for example,
in the formulation of his logic of question and answer, Collingwood
could not condone the fascist conclusions that Gentile drew from his
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Monism and Modality

philosophical theory of the will which saw wills in conflict with each
other and compelled to dominate those of others. Collingwoods
theory of the will necessarily implied mutual respect, acknowledging
the same freedom of the will in others as a precondition of society
and civilisation.
In his formulation of a scale of forms of experience, Hegels philosophy for Collingwood was mediated through Croce. Croce had in
fact rejected Hegels dialectic of opposites because of its misunderstanding of the relation between concepts. Hegel viewed the relation
as distinct contraries in an opposition that is resolved in a higher form
or specification. Hegel made a real contribution to philosophy in recognizing that experience may be understood as a series of degrees of
reality, and that opposites were not in opposition to unity. His success
was marred by his failure to distinguish between opposites and distincts. By definition, the philosophical concept, in the view of Croce
and Collingwood, is a unity that is composed of distinctions, each of
which is itself a concept. Each concept is distinct in that it is a different specification, or characterisation of the whole. Croce contends
that Spirit takes theoretical and practical forms. Intuition and thought
are the theoretical forms, while the utilitarian and ethical wills are the
Practical. The four specifications of Spirit are distinct, but not separate. Each is logically dependent upon the lower, and potentially, but
not actually, dependent upon, the higher. The concepts are distinct
but related to each other in a necessary logical sequence of degrees of
reality, which constitute the concept of Spirit. The contraries, or
opposites, are included in the concepts themselves. Take the concept
of beauty as an example. Beauty is associated with intuition and art,
and is what it is because of its denial of the ugly. The idea of ugliness
as the negative, or contrary, is not in opposition to the concept, but
part of the concept of beauty itself.30
Deriving its inspiration directly from Croce, Collingwoods theory
of the philosophical concept posits a series of overlapping forms, differing at once in degree and kind, and comprises a unity of opposites
and distincts. The philosophical concept differs from the scientific.
The philosophical concept, pace the scientific, defies being distinguished into distinct coordinate species of a genus. If we try to classify actions in respect of their motives, for example, we discover that
some are not confined to one or another type but exhibit mixed
motives such as doing what one thinks useful, right and obligatory. If
we ignore the overlap by identifying the margins at which the pure
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British Idealism

essence of the concept becomes apparent, excluding any other species

of the genus, is to commit the fallacy of precarious margins. To
acknowledge overlap, and then to ignore it by focussing on the margins, gives us no grounds for asserting that the overlap will not become
more pervasive. To suggest that the overlap is limitless puts us in danger of succumbing to the fallacy of identified coincidents. This simply ignores the differences in the kind of generic specification
altogether, and renders us incapable of seeing the differences between
what is useful, right and dutiful. For example, a utilitarian who claims
that performing ones duties contributes to an increase in the general
happiness is unable to distinguish between the concept of promoting
the general happiness and the concept of duty. To collapse the different specifications in this manner renders us incapable of seeing that
they embody the generic essence in different degrees, each of which is
a different kind of specification.
The reason why there are different forms is because within each
there is a discrepancy between what it is and what it aspires to be,
and in the course of self-modification each becomes transformed
into something else and embodies the generic essence to a more adequate degree.31 Art, for example, purports to be pure imagination,
but nowhere does pure imagination exist because all imagination
builds on fact and returns to fact. There is not an autonomous selfcontained world of art, aesthetic experience, in which every trace of
fact is absent. The error of art is the belief in the separateness and
independence of imagination.32
Collingwood argues that the lower form of experience, from the
point of view of the higher, is an inadequate embodiment of the
generic essence and must be negated. The lower, however, is affirmed
by the higher in having its positive content taken up by the superordinate form. The lower is the experience, which the higher modifies
and transforms by constructing a theory to explain it.33 At each of
the stages, or specifications, the whole of the scale is summed up to
that point because the specific form at which we stand is the generic
concept itself, so far as our thought yet conceives it.34
Art, religion, science, history and philosophy succeed each other
logically. With the exception of philosophy, each transforms itself by
aspiring to be what it is not, and each is a more adequate specification of the general essence of spirit, namely, self-consciousness. The
forms presuppose, and take into themselves, those that they supersede. In order to be absorbed in this way by the higher, each must
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Monism and Modality

have the potential of their successor within them. The forms of experience are not separate faculties, but the whole self from a different
point of view, related to each other, not as coordinate species of a
genus, but in a logically ascending scale of overlapping forms.
Collingwood argues that in every field of activity there is a theoretical element, in virtue of which the mind is aware of something;
there is a practical element in virtue of which the mind is bringing
about a change in itself and in its world.35 The different forms of
experience, or spirit, all have an associated form of practical reason,
or action. Play becomes manifest in art, convention in religion;
abstract, or utilitarian, ethics in science; duty, or concrete ethics in
history; and absolute ethics in philosophy.36
The relationship which holds among the forms, and between the
forms and the whole is characterized concisely in Collingwoods
Outlines of a Philosophy of Art, where he contends that they are
not:
species of a common genus. They are activities each of which
presupposes and includes within itself those that logically precede
it; thus religion is inclusively art, science inclusively religion and
therefore art, and so on. And on the other hand each is in a sense
all that follows it; for instance, in possessing religion we already
possess philosophy of a sort, but we possess it only in the form in
which it is present in, and indeed constitutes, religion.37
The Autonomous Modes

Bradley, at first glance, appears to subscribe to the role that both

Gentile and Collingwood ascribed to philosophy. Bradley contends
that a complete philosophy would take each aspect of the world of
appearance, measure it by the absolute standard of reality as a whole,
Absolute experience, and assign it a rank according to its relative
merits and defects. On this scale, Nature and Spirit stand at opposite
ends, and each degree further up the scale would exhibit more of the
character of Spirit than that of Nature.38 Bradley here accepts the
legitimacy of the task of determining, with reference to the criterion
of coherence, the exact degree to which each mode falls short of reality as a whole. Unlike Collingwood, however, Bradley does not see
the modes in an ascending scale of forms, in which the deficiencies of
their predecessors are transformed.
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British Idealism

In relation to each other, none of the modes may claim logical

priority, nor claim that it is higher in rank, and qualitatively superior. Furthermore, none may claim to explain the other modes,
letalone experience as a whole. Each must be left to pursue its own
methods and infer its own conclusions. That natural science rejects
all forms of explanation that are not mechanical is its own business,
and within its own boundaries it remains sovereign.39
Bradley does, nevertheless, suggest that each in attempting to remedy its defects implicates something outside itself.40 Because Bradley
subscribes to the view that there are degrees of reality, he maintains
that the watertight distinctions we attempt to make between the different worlds in which we find a home break down the barriers
between them.41 Let us take metaphysics as an example. Metaphysics
contributes something to the philosophy of Nature, not by purporting to direct scientific enquiry, but in evaluating the results of science
on the principle of perfect individuality, and assigning them a place
on the scale of being. On such a scale, the lower, insofar as they
make good their defects, pass beyond themselves into the higher.42 So
far this sounds very like Collingwoods scale of forms. Bradley goes
on to suggest, however, that all of these main aspects of the universe are irresolvable into the rest, and from this standpoint none is
higher in rank or better than another.43 Indeed, not even philosophy
may claim superiority without betraying a most deplorable error,
that the intellect exhibits the highest aspect of our nature, and that in
the world of intellect work done on the highest subjects is for that
reason the highest work.44
Michael Oakeshott gave serious consideration to ranking the
modes of experiences in terms of the degree of coherence attained.
He concluded that such an exercise is a difficult task to accomplish,
but that is not an adequate reason for rejecting it. Instead, Oakeshott
argued that such an undertaking rests on a misconception of the
legitimate aims of philosophy. He admitted that each mode may
exhibit a different degree of abstraction. From the point of view of
philosophy, however, it is an irrelevance. The important point is not
the degree of abstraction, but the fact of abstraction, defect and
shortcoming. Measuring the extent of the defect is not necessary: it
is necessary only to recognise abstraction and to overcome it. In
recognizing and investigating the conditional intelligibility of history, for example, it is not necessary to attempt to place it in a logical
or genetic hierarchy.45
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Monism and Modality

Hegel and those who place the modes on a scale of forms do so in

order to demonstrate a certain logical necessity for the emergence of
each. In essence, a hierarchy of forms gives an account of why each
has arisen. Oakeshott does not wish to address this question. For
him, there is no logical necessity for their appearance, other than to
suggest that the philosophical disposition cannot be sustained indefinitely. For Oakeshott, the modes emerge like the games that children
play: Each appears, first, not in response to a premeditated achievement, but as a direction of attention pursued without premonition
of what it will lead to.46 He concurs with Collingwood, however,
that the modes are not products of separate faculties of the mind.
For Oakeshott, there is no limit in principle to the number of determinate modes that may arise, but in Experience and its Modes he identified only three that had achieved levels of coherence capable of
maintaining what they asserted. The modes were the practical, history and science. Each rests upon unquestioned postulates capable of
generating relatively sophisticated conclusions, but all ultimately fall
short of experience as a whole because of their conditionality. History,
for instance, maintains that there is a past that really happened of
which it purports to give an account. The past in history, however, is
a postulate and is logically specific to history and categorically distinct from the practical past. All experience is present experience, and
history organizes its evidence in the present in terms of the category
of the past. It does not and cannot correspond to a dead past that
is no longer retrievable as the criterion for judgeing the truthfulness
of an account. History is created by historians on the basis of what
the evidence obliges them to believe.47
The modes are conditional arrests, which differ from philosophy,
or experience as a whole. They build worlds of ideas upon unquestioned assumptions or postulates. Criteria of appropriateness are
formulated in each; and legitimate manners of enquiry, procedures and practices are developed. What they provide, however, is
conditional intelligibility. Philosophy is unlike the modes in being
the concrete totality of experience. It is experience without reservation, presupposition or arrest. Its purpose and role is to interrogate
the postulates of each mode, and expose the contradictions inherent
in their partial view of experience. Philosophy reveals the contradictory character of the arrests in experience, and it does not make a
substantive contribution to how they should conduct their affairs.
Philosophers who mistake their calling for that of the preacher
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British Idealism

abandon at the point of recommendation the philosophical endeavour. Those who persistently intrude their views on the better conduct of the practices of the modes are little more than philosophes
or theoreticians. Oakeshott would include among them Bentham
and Marx.
The philosophical endeavour is difficult to sustain unrelentingly,
and even the most sophisticated of philosophers from time to time
take respite in the practical mode, voicing their opinions or concerns
about this or that matter. Thomas Hobbes, the greatest of English
philosophers, was not himself immune, but at those points where he
lapses into recommendation he ceases to philosophize.
In this view of the relationship between the modes, they are completely autonomous. It is not their subject matter that distinguishes
them from each other. The subject matter is in fact created by the
modes and is therefore not given as such, but as a conclusion.
Oakeshott argues that our understanding of something is necessarily the creature of the ideal character in terms of which it is being
understood.48 The interpretative practices of the modes in so far as
evidence is recognized as evidence, are the creation of the mode itself.
There is no independent given in experience independent of the
mode in terms of which it is interpreted.49 The implication is text
and interpretation are one and inseparable.50
The modes are protected by their own exclusivity from the irrelevant intrusions of the others and from the concrete totality of experience. Each is true for itself. None may confirm or deny the
conclusions of the others. None of them can claim to be foundational or prior to the rest. The modes are, then, in relation to each
other, independent, but in respect to the whole their relation is one of
dependence in that they exist only as abstractions of the concrete
totality of experience.51
There is no essence, or epistemological foundation, to which they
can all be reduced. In Oakeshotts famous imagery, they are voices in
the conversation of mankind, incapable of refuting each other. They
are not adversaries, but companions and acquaintances engaged in
polite discourse. From time to time one voice may try to dominate the
conversation in the mistaken belief that its conclusions are those to
which all the others must defer.52 The image of philosophical discourse
as a conversation is one that Richard Rorty was to adopt later.53
Whereas Collingwood, Croce and Gentile had all acknowledged
the modal character of art or aesthetics, Oakeshott initially believed
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Monism and Modality

that it was simply an aspect of practical life, and like all practical
judgement art asserts reality and attributes to it a certain character.54
In other words, it makes propositions about the world, which may be
deemed right or wrong according to the criteria of practical life. He
later came to modify his view because he concluded that the utterances of poetry, which encompass all forms of artistic practice, have
distinctive postulates, which serve as their differentiae.
Poetry, for Oakeshott, is a distinct way of imagining, differing from
the practical, scientific or historical ways of imagining.55 The voice
of poetry is distinguished from the other voices by the manner of its
activity. It contemplates or delights in the making of images. As
opposed to the images in other idioms of discourse they are mere
images. They are not facts about the world because they are not
propositions. It is inappropriate then to appreciate them in terms of
truth and falsity.
It is not appropriate to ask of the images whether what is depicted
really happened, or whether it is just possible, probable, or illusion
and make-believe. To ask such questions assumes the distinction
between fact and not fact, which has no place in poetic contemplative imagining. The images themselves have no past or future, they
are merely present and delighted in for what they are, and not for
what they are related to, such as the event, occasion or emotion that
may have given rise to them. A poetic image cannot lie because it
affirms nothing. That a work of art does not faithfully represent its
subject is irrelevant. Monets Water lilies is a composition of shapes,
light and colour comprising an image whose aesthetic quality has
nothing to do with whether it looks like the lily pond in Monets
garden, and the appeal of Salvadore Dalis Clock is not diminished
by the fact that it is unlikely to keep time in its distorted condition.
The stars in Vincent van Goghs Starry Night are of no practical
use to the traveller who needs to get from one place to another, but
that makes no difference to its character as art. Monets Water
Lilies, Dalis Clock and van Goghs Starry Night exist only in the
poetic image that they have created. One poet is distinguished from
another in the arrangement and diction of the contemplative images
imagined. The symbols are not interchangeable; to substitute one
synonym for another destroys the image.
Poetic images are mere images because the relationship between
symbol (language) and meaning (thought) differs in poetry from
the relation in other modes of experience. This is a view Michael
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British Idealism

Oakeshott shares with Collingwood who, in Speculum Mentis (1924),

distinguishes art, religion, science, history and philosophy with reference to their different relationships between symbol and meaning. In
our everyday practical lives, for example, each symbol or word has a
determinate referent or signification. The more determinate, the better the communication. If I ask for a loaf of bread, I am using a
symbol to evoke an image, not to create one. I am not trying to give
a novel nuance to the symbol, merely to be understood in a settled
language. In other words, meaning and symbol are distinct, but not
radically separable because in this mode every word has its proper
reference or signification.56 The symbol is separable from that which
conveys meaning. In art or poetry, there is no separation of symbol
and meaning: a poetic image is its meaning: it symbolizes nothing
outside of itself.57
As we saw, in Speculum Mentis Collingwood characterized art as
pure imagination. In The Principles of Art he was to elaborate a theory at the centre of which was the expression of emotion.58 Oakeshott
denies that poetry, or art, is the expression of emotion designed to
evoke the same emotion in the recipient. The ability to evoke that
same emotion in others is the criterion of good art. Collingwood
does not, in fact, think about art in this way. He rejects a means-ends
relationship in art, which the language of design and execution
requires. Emotion is discovered only in its expression. It is not a premeditated design.
Oakeshotts critique does, nevertheless, apply in part to
Collingwoods theory. The idea that art is the expression of emotion
rests on the mistaken view that poetry must be in some way informative and instructive. The poet must have experienced the emotion
that generated the poetic image. This, Oakeshott argues, makes a
necessity of what is no more than an unlikely possibility.59
It is no criticism of Oakeshott to argue that artists, historians, scientists or philosophers engage in much more than he attributes to
them. The point is that he is trying to establish what makes the utterances unique; he is not suggesting, for example, that poets only contemplate or delight in images, but that what they do in addition to
this is not poetry.
Unlike Collingwood, then, Oakeshott affirms a clear distinction
between practical and theoretical activities, or between conduct and
theorizing. Collingwoods understanding of the specifications of the
philosophical concept as a linked hierarchical series of overlapping
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Monism and Modality

forms, and Oakeshotts conception of the relationship between each

of the modes of experience as one of complete autonomy and categorical integrity, serve to explain their opposed views of the relation
between theory and practice, and of historys relation to practical
life.
In Collingwoods view, it is history that negates the traditional dis
tinction between theory and practice because in history the object is
enacted and is therefore not an object at all.60 The significance of the
idea of re-enactment in Collingwoods thought, although subject to
considerable criticism,61 with its emphasis upon the purposes and
intentions of the historical actors, is that it requires the historian to
re-live past-events in the contemporaneous practical injunctive
moods of the participants. Collingwood continuously emphasized
that history is eminently practical in enhancing ones own self-knowledge and preparing oneself for action. In this respect, history has a
crucial role to play because historical problems ultimately arise out
of the plane of real or practical life, and it is to history that practical
problems are referred for their solution. History, therefore, stands in
the closest possible relation to practical life.62 For Oakeshott, on the
other hand, the practical mode, or conduct, is categorically irrelevant to historical inquiry.63 History, in Oakeshotts view, is a form of
theorizing and therefore released from considerations of conduct.64
Contrary to popular opinion, history is not derived from, nor built
upon, practical life, and conversely practical life has nothing to learn
from the categorically irrelevant mode of history.65 The past in history, Oakeshott contends, is without the moral, the political or
social structure which the practical man transfers from his present to
his past.66 Oakeshott denies that history concerns itself with the
intentions, purposes, reasons, motives or the deliberative calculations of an agent, and therefore history simply cannot be conceived
as the recalling, re-living, or re-enacting of past events.67
In addition to the determinate modes, Oakeshott identified indeterminate modes. Each fails to achieve the coherence of the determinate, and because of this lack of homogeneity, they do not have
robust defences against experience as a whole. In these indeterminate
modifications of experience, philosophy may intrude without irrelevance. The indeterminate modes are pseudo-philosophical. They
have the character of philosophy in interrogating experience, but are
abstract in falling short of unconditional experience as a whole.
Ethical thought provides us with an exemplar. It does not explore
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British Idealism

morality practically, historically or scientifically. Its world of ideas

does not enjoy the conditional intelligibility of the determinate
modes, but it is nevertheless attached to the world as a whole.
Following Bradley, Oakeshott contends that there can be no freefloating ideas detached from a world, and in consequence the world
to which ethics belongs, or attaches itself, is the concrete totality of
experience. Philosophical and pseudo-philosophical ideas belong to
the same world, but whereas the former are aware of its world, the
latter are not.68
In On Human Conduct, published some 43 years later, Oakeshott
introduces difference emphases, but certainly does not abandon his
earlier views as some have suggested.69 The indeterminate modes, for
example, such as ethics and political philosophy, he refers to as indeterminate levels of understanding. Each is certainly a platform of
conditional understanding, but now he claims that they are superior
to the determinate modes, or platforms of conditional understanding.70 Those who occupy this intermediate level distinguish themselves from those who are satisfied with the conditionality of such
modes as history or science, in that they investigate the conditions
but do not engage in the activities they investigate. They are poised
between heaven and earth, acknowledging the unconditional nature
of theorizing, but temporarily renounce metaphysics and experience
as a whole in order to occupy a platform of conditional understanding, such as political philosophy, appropriate to their needs.
Conclusion

In this chapter, we have shown how the British Idealists, inspired by

both their German and Italian counterparts, conceived of experience in terms of modality, that is, worlds of ideas resting upon conditional postulates capable of sustaining a high degree of coherence,
but falling short of the concrete totality of experience. Philosophy
has as one of its roles, the investigation of the conditionality of these
modes. We demonstrated the two main ways in which the relationship between the modes, and between the modes and the whole, were
conceptualized: first, as a linked hierarchy of forms culminating in
the absolute, and, secondly as modes autonomous of each other, but
related in all being modifications, or arrests, in experience as a
whole.

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Monism and Modality

Special attention was given to aesthetics, or poetry, because, like

metaphysics in the previous chapter, such modes emphasized the
non-propositional character of some of our utterances. These are
things in which we take delight without asking such questions as did
it really happen, or is it a true likeness. The two conceptions of the
relationship among modes (and to the whole), as exemplified by
Oakeshott and Collingwood, led to different conceptions of the relationships between theory and practice. We should not, however,
assume that it necessarily follows that if one ranks the modes of
experience in a hierarchy one will also contend that the philosopher
has a duty to inform conduct. Hegel, for example, believed in such a
hierarchy but thought philosophy came onto the scene too late to
influence events.

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Chapter four

Political and Ethical Philosophy

Introduction

One of the most well-known dimensions of British Idealist thought

is its political and ethical philosophy. Political philosophy is a crucial characteristic of some of the most celebrated works of the
British Idealists, that is, books such as T. H. Greens Lectures on the
Principles of Political Obligation, Bernard Bosanquets The
Philosophical Theory of the State or D. G. Ritchies Principles of
State Interference. However, not all the British Idealists focused
directly on political philosophy. The work, for example, of F. H.
Bradley is a case in point.The same holds for the works of most of the
Personal Idealists, such as McTaggart, Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison
or Hastings Rashdall, where issues of religion, morality, epistemology and metaphysics figured much more prominently. A second proviso to bear in mind is that the above works on political philosophy
were not written in isolation from metaphysical, epistemological or
moral concerns; such concerns in fact saturate these works. This
point alone makes British Idealist political philosophy unusual in
terms of the prevalent anti-metaphysical concerns of the bulk of
mid- to late twentieth-century Anglo-American and European
political philosophy. A third rider is that in terms of practical political allegiance, many of the Idealist school had commitments to a
form of radical or social liberalism (which we will explore in a later
chapter). Although, again, there were clear exceptions: F. H. Bradley
and Michael Oakeshott are cases in point. However, in this chapter,
we wish to provide a critical overview of a number of the key concerns of the bulk of British Idealist political philosophy. The main
sections will focus on the debates concerning the state, sovereignty,
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Political and Ethical Philosophy

will theory, obligation, the conception of individuality, morality and

the common good and citizenship.
The State

British Idealist political philosophy precipitated, in many minds, a

gradual reassessment of the idea and practice of the state, predominantly in the period from 1870 to 1914. The idea of the British state
that Idealists were seeking to contest was largely focused on what
might now be called a classical liberal vision. The broader liberal
conception of the state arose from a much older intellectual tradition
of European constitutionalism. The principal concerns of this constitutional tradition were to limit the scope of the state, to make it
accountable and responsible for its actions and to ensure that it was
committed to certain values such as liberty. The arguments of liberals in mid- to late nineteenth-century Britain varied between those
who hovered close to libertarianism and anarchism, disliking the
growth of the state in any sphere, or seeing it as a deeply unfortunate
necessity, as against those who saw a more positive and active role for
it in promoting genuine individuality, fairness and civic virtue.1
Herbert Spencer was a typical representative of the late nineteenthcentury negative liberal response. Spencer, in fact, became a particular target of many British Idealists, such as T. H. Green, Bernard
Bosanquet and D. G. Ritchie. Spencer saw the state as a regrettable
but necessary committee of management. He had an extensive list
of do nots for the state. As a result, he viewed the statute book of
the British state as an unmitigated disaster, legislation piled on more
legislation to cure the defects of previous legislation. Such state
growth interfered with genuine social evolution towards (what he
termed) the industrial society, by cultivating dependence in the
population and undermining individual self-help and self-reliance.
The state, for Spencer, should therefore have no concern whatsoever
with aiding the poor, factory legislation, public health, drainage, sewage or even vaccination. Spencer also disapproved of any form of
state involvement in education on the same grounds. He objected to
state-organized postal networks and lighthouses, and, oddly, took
deep exception to the British Nursing Association and National
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, as overtly collectivist groups undermining pure individualism. On the other hand,
Spencer did suggest the state control of libel laws and the regulation
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British Idealism

of pollution, noise and smoke. He also toyed with a scheme for land
nationalization by the state, land ownership being regarded as an
aggression against individual rights. Later in life he also conceded
the need for state involvement in the upkeep of roads, pavements and
sewerage. All this greatly disappointed his libertarian disciples.
A similar subdued negativity towards the state can be seen in the
utilitarian liberals such as Bentham, Mill and Sidgwick. However,
despite their overt commitment to a limited state, they were prepared
to allow it to perform progressively more tasks, going well beyond
Spencers proposals. The science of social utility thus allowed utilitarians to assess the felicific value of state activity. There were therefore no absolute grounds to oppose state action per se. Furthermore,
no continental liberals really rivalled Spencers brand of libertarian
state minimalism. For example, Benjamin Constant and Alexis de
Tocqueville were both looking at limitations through balance and
separation of powers within the state structure. Their major fear,
however, was revolution, the growth of popular state dictatorship
and the consequent decline of individual freedoms.
For the British Idealists, state action was too often seen in a negative light. Compulsion (vis--vis the state) was still a central feature
of their argument, although in Bosanquets terminology it was conceived as a hindrance to hindrances. However, the idea of the hindrance to hindrances was not conceptualizing compulsion as
negative. It was conversely seeing it as contributing to human development. As Green, for example, commented: The man who, of his
own right feeling, saves his wife from overwork, and sends his children to school, suffers no moral degradation from a law which, if he
did not do this for himself, would seek to make him do it.2 If a state
could by exercising force or compulsion guarantee that factory
owners did not endanger their workers with unprotected machinery,
could make certain that parents sent their children to school, and
ensure that unemployment insurance was legally mandatory, then,
for the Idealist, none of these measures were a genuine infringement
of human liberty. Such measures were, in fact, providing the conditions for a genuine richer exercise of social freedom.
The above argument did not entail that British Idealism was in any
way overtly committed to state action for its own sake. As we will see,
it was uniformly as uneasy (to greater and lesser degrees) with forms
of collectivized organization as in state socialism as it with the
atomized individualism of the likes of Spencer. The British Idealist
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Political and Ethical Philosophy

philosophy of the state was therefore neither ultra-collective nor

ultra-individualistic in its general ethos.
There was though (as indicated) a delicate and sometimes shifting
balance among different Idealists on the issue of state action. For
example, Bosanquet and Green give a great deal of emphasis to individual self-reliance. Improved housing conditions or sanitation, in
themselves, do not improve moral character. People have to will their
self-improvement. Consequently, whereas Bosanquet took a harder
line on poor relief, other Idealists, such as Jones and Muirhead, were
much more sympathetic to its extension.3 It is worth noting here that
Collingwood also stood firmly in the social liberal tradition (vis-vis Jones and Muirhead) and believed that blatant inequalities of
wealth reflected unequal relations of force, which effectively undermined individual development and freedom of choice. The state, for
Collingwood, like Jones and Muirhead, thus had a positive role in
eliminating force from relations among individuals in the same body
politic, and between diverse bodies politic. Alternatively, Oakeshott
(more in line with Bosanquet and Green), tended towards a more
limited conception of state activity, in which its role was seen as
upholding non-instrumental laws that provide conditions for individual initiative or choice. However, the end of the state was always
(for all Idealists) the good life for all citizens.
Thus, what one finds in Idealism overall is a more positive rendition of the state than one finds in classical liberals, libertarians and
indeed much continental liberalism. This conception was neither the
result of any sudden social and political transition, nor necessarily a
fundamental revision of liberal constitutionalist thought. For British
Idealists, it was rather the result of a slow internal movement within
certain key liberal ideas, such as liberty. It would still be true to say
that this movement towards a more liberal social welfare state in the
early twentieth century was accelerated by prominent British Idealist
thinkers, such as Green. The Idealist notion of the state was envisaged as having a positive enabling role in society. It was not just an
abstracted alien body of institutions, but rather, and quite crucially,
seen as an organic outgrowth of the wills, dispositions and aspirations of the citizens comprising it. It was thus viewed as something
designed for the realization of the common human purposes, which
were (in the Idealist mind) coincidental with a truer conception of
social individuality and liberty. The meaning and significance of the
state were, inall essentials, therefore focused on the improvement and
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British Idealism

well-being of its members. This position, in an important sense, was

still both individualist and committed to individual liberty. However,
such liberty and individuality required the state to provide the necessary conditions for all citizens to develop.
Thus, in sum, the state for the Idealists was considered as a moral
agent, with ideals and purposes that it formulated and pursued for
the betterment of society as a whole. Thus Ritchie, for example, saw
the state as the most adequate representative of the general will in the
community.4 For Bosanquet, it was the sustainer of the rights that
underpinned any good life. Without the state the individual was
nothing. This did not mean that the individual owed the state blind
obedience. Contrary to the views of critics, such as H.Laski, C.E.M.
Joad, L.T. Hobhouse and J. A. Hobson, the state for the Idealists was
only a moral absolute when acting in conformity with its purpose of
promoting and sustaining the common good. States that contravened
their purpose and promoted factionalism had to be resisted on moral
grounds. Green, for example, imposed no unconditional duty on the
citizen to obey the law at all costs, since those laws may be inconsistent with the true end of the state, as the sustainer and harmoniser of
social relations.5
It must be remembered that Green was a great admirer of the revolutionary impetus and achievements of the English civil war. He recognized that resistance and disobedience, in certain circumstances, was
absolutely necessary. Similarly, Ritchie argued that if a law was so at
odds with a persons conscience, it must be disobeyed, otherwise ones
self-respect and character would be degraded. The state had, however,
no duty to find in favour of the individual, and an individuals resistance might, in fact, only be vindicated in the fullness of time.
These ideas, plus more radical uses of utilitarian and evolutionary
thought, lay firmly behind the advent of the new liberalism in Britain.
For thinkers such as Hobson and Hobhouse, and in America John
Dewey, and later in the century John Rawls, the state was increasingly
viewed as an integral part of the economic and social life of the community. It was not just concerned with freeing individuals from obstacles to their economic activity, but was actively involved in the
promotion of a better life for its citizens. Liberals, up to the present
day, have never been completely at ease with the state. The two major
world wars of the twentieth century and the penetration of the state
into many spheres have genuinely unsettled them to the present day.
This unease was true of new liberals in Britain during and after the
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Political and Ethical Philosophy

First World War. However, discontent with the state has never stopped
liberals from using it to promote freedom, utilizing distributive justice, establishing a legal framework for economic relations, promoting
a mixed economy and providing certain public goods. The state in this
sense can be an enabling institution for the good life for all citizens.
The state as such is not primarily for Idealism concerned with simply aggregating human beings, it is not merely about hegemonic
power, unchallenged absolute sovereignty, military weaponry, sole
jurisdiction, strict boundaries or even territory. The state is conversely an organic state of mind, will and consciousness among a
wide range of individuals who have a fairly consistent perception of
their social relatedness and accredit each other equally with rights. It
is a condition, which has evolved gradually from earlier forms of
non-state social relations. It concretizes and institutionalizes a social
relatedness, which predates it a form of profound and rich custombased social relationship between human beings.
Sovereignty

The concept of sovereignty is closely related to that of the state in

Idealism; however, it was reinterpreted in the light of the Idealists own
unique understanding. Sovereign power can and obviously is often
directed at individuals contrary to their perceived interests. This issue
has given rise to many hostages to fortune and often leads to arguments focused on the coercive and violent potential of states. For
Idealists, the very focus that many place upon the concept of sovereignty (and coercive power) is actually the root of the problem, certainly in the manner in which they are used in discussion of the practice
of the state. Thus, for example, T.H. Green suggested that there was a
deep mischief in using the concept of sovereignty in this manner. If
sovereignty was just considered an alien power supervened over individuals, then it involved a radical misunderstanding.
For Idealists, such as Green, the source of this misunderstanding
of sovereignty lays particularly in the writings of Thomas Hobbes
and John Austin. Hobbes states the general ethos of this problematic
sense of sovereignty with admirable, if ironic, clarity:
For if we could suppose a great Multitude of men to consent in
the observation of Justice, and other Lawes of Nature, without a
common Power to keep them in awe; we might as well suppose all
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British Idealism

Man-kind to do the same; and then there would-be, nor need to

be any Civill Government because there would be Peace without subjection.6
Peace without awe, terror, overt coercion and subjection is ludicrous for Hobbes. The sovereign thus hath the use of so much Power
and strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof he is inabled
to form the wills of all And in him consisteth the Essence of the
Commonwealth.7 Sovereignty becomes the crucial cement in this
particular statist vernacular.
British Idealists were explicitly critical of Hobbes and Austin on
this specific issue. At a very basic level, one could not be forced to
be obligated. Awe, force and terror are not the basis of the state.
For Idealists, the Hobbesian idea that laws or rights could be pernicious, but still just, is patently unreasonable: in the words of T. H.
Greens well-known lecture, will, not force, is the basis of the state.8
Ultimately, for Green, this is the good will embodied in the common good. In effect, the doctrine concerned with the precedence of
unregulated sovereignty, leads, in turn, to unregulated reason of
state. It is an argument, which therefore facilitates a political irresponsibility. This, in turn, creates the implicit danger of claims to
supreme power being eagerly conceded to imprudent or iniquitous
politicians, parliaments, monarchs or aristocrats. A world of unconstrained sovereigns would result in a disordered international environment. Thus, the idea of sovereignty articulated in this manner
becomes an invitation to both internal tyranny and external irresponsibility. For Idealists, unconstrained abstracted sovereignty
particularly as regards both rights and freedoms presents us with a
profound quandary. Any internal order gained by sovereignty would
also be continuously under threat from the potential violence and
threat to external order. There was therefore something politically
disquieting in the whole notion of abstract unregulated sovereignty
marking out the state.
As indicated above, for Idealism therefore it is not coercion, power
or unregulated sovereignty, as such, which marks out the state. On
the contrary, it is coercion and power exercised in a certain way and
for certain ends, that makes a state.9 Sovereignty is ultimately rooted,
like any social institutions or social process, in a common desire for
certain ends to which the observance of law or established usage
contributes, and in most case implies no conscious reference on the
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Political and Ethical Philosophy

part of those whom it influences to any coercive power at all.10

Sovereignty needs therefore to be grasped through the idea of a state
as a civil or political association. Such an association is constituted as
a power that guarantees rights. It is a body of citizens habitually
obedient to some governmental power, but the power of that governing body is not absolute or unregulated.
The notion of sovereignty embedded in the more absolutist
abstracted unregulated reading thus misses the point. It gives sovereignty too much credence and generative power. As such it misunderstands some of the fundamental characteristics of what a state
actually is. The Idealist perspective aims to establish conceptual and
practical links between an account of sovereignty and an account of
the social good and by default the epistemic manner in which individuals will such a social good. Sovereignty only exists insofar as it
embodies, accredits and recognizes the rights of the individual citizens. The political association of the state refers, approximately,
therefore to a sense of possessing common interest, a desire for common objects. If this desire for common objects conflicts with governmental or executive commands, then obedience will simply cease
to operate.11
Will, Not Force

One of the central ideas to be derived from the above set of arguments was a sense that the state and sovereignty had to be viewed in
a different manner. One of the key concepts to arise in this new discourse was will. Sovereignty, if it was to be meaningful, was essentially referring to the sovereignty of will, in point of fact, the general
will. There are though many possible reading of this argument.
The deeper background for this theory in British Idealism lays in
the work of Rousseau, Kant and Hegel. In effect, the moral agent
was not seen to be governed by any causal necessity, but conversely
(in potentiality) was a self-legislating and self-determining agent.
The individual was thus essentially author of the principles she
obeys. The Idealist tradition, in the main, adopted this Kantianinspired theory of the will to show essentially that there was no experience or action apart from that which takes place though the medium
of experience and judgement. There could be nothing prior to human
experience and judgement. Will is realizing ideas or judgements in
action. As F. H. Bradley put it, volition is the realization of itself by
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British Idealism

an idea, an idea with which the self here and now is identified.12
The background to this claim was Hegels contention that the will is
literally thinking translating itself into existence, thinking is the urge
to give itself existence.13 Hegel calls this notion of will a self-determining universality.
Bosanquet gives a very crisp and precise rendering of this same
argument in an essay entitled The Reality of the General Will. For
him, the individual human mind should be considered analogous to a
machine of which the parts are ideas or groups of ideas, all tending
to pass into action. The will can then be said to consist of those
ideas which are guiding attention and action.14 For Bosanquet,
though, certain ideas had a logical and systematic power to govern
and focus the contents of the individual mind. Such ideas enabled
the individual to grasp and solve a range of problems. Success in
coping with problems reinforced the credibility and strength of such
ideas and the forms of action that flowed from them. Bosanquet
thought that such formative ideas reflected the real necessities of
human life. He also maintained that such ideas were largely derived
from the tried and tested customary institutions of social and political life itself. They formed the inside which reflects the material
action and real conditions that form the outside.15 The good will, for
Bosanquet, was one in which reason and will were united within certain dominant fertile ideas. These ideas ultimately formed the substance to the idea and practice of the general will.
The logical sequence of this argument was, in essential, that each
individual will was an expression of a dominant, creative and reasoned idea (or colligating idea). This idea marshalled and focused
the contents of the mind and structured both will and thus the actions
in specific concrete ways. Such ideas were derived ultimately from
pre-existing institutional structures of social existence. The general
will, in this sense, was analogous to the individual will (and was in
fact organically related to it). The general will thus embodied those
generic creative and dominant ideas of the whole society. In the same
manner that the individual marshalled the contents of their own consciousness, so the general will represented the marshalling of all the
individual wills of civil society as a whole. As Bosanquet put it, the
general will was the whole working system of dominant ideas which
determines the places and functions of its members.16 The sovereignty of the general will embodied the sovereignty of certain dominant reasonable ideas. Such dominant ideas also figured as the crucial
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dimension of the good will of individuals. This, as we will see, also

corresponded directly with the Idealist theory of citizenship. Overall,
the good state was the organized body within which consciousness
and rational will functioned. Sovereignty therefore as such was the
sovereignty of the good will and thus the common good.
Obligation

The above accounts of sovereignty and will were also the key to the
Idealist understanding of obligation. As indicated above, at the most
basic level, for Idealists one could not be forced to be obligated.
The structure of the state and its legal processes were present to provide the conditions for moral action. No moral action, as such, could
be forced on citizens. Moral duty was distinct, in this sense, from
legal and political obligation. What the state does is to restrain the
inclinations of individuals what Bosanquet called hindering of
hindrances to enable and encourage individuals to see that they
shared a common life with others. The best account of law would
therefore be one that brings individuals to a point where they have
the possibility to realize their moral nature. Self-realization is thus
largely dependent upon the background conditions of state and legal
action. This forms the basis for the principles of political and legal
obligation. Law and the state cannot make citizens morally good,
but they can restrain certain elements of human action that would
undermine the common good of society and prevent humans realizing their potential capacities. Obligations thus refer largely to external
acts. The individual is obligated to the state insofar as he or she seeks
the common good. If such a state enforces certain responsibilities
(premised on the common good), it is no infringement of individual
freedom.
The above theory entailed a negative and critical account of the
classical liberal individualist vision of obligation, which often
focused on devices such as contract theory to explicate obligation.
The idea of any hypothetical or historical condition in which individuals made contracts and consented to obey the state struck the
majority of Idealists as nonsensical. At most one could say that
contract and the related idea of natural right were symbolic devices
indicating something important about the character of law and
obligation. There were though qualified exceptions to this Idealist
argument. The later writings of Collingwood, for example, do
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employ a specific understanding of contract. Yet, even though

Collingwood was a social contract theorist of sorts, he did not use
the device for the same purposes as either traditional classical liberal thinkers or the modern liberal contractarians of the Rawlsian
generation. Freedom of will and choice were nonetheless still crucial to his conception of what it is to be human.
For Collingwood, to exercise free will positively is to choose, and
negatively it is to be free from desires in the sense of not being at
their mercy.17 Given this emphasis upon choice, it is not surprising
that civil association, for Collingwood, is best characterized as the
result of freedom of choice. The capacity for free choice is not, however, itself freely chosen, it is an achievement, but it is not consciously
willed.18 It is attained by an act of self-liberation at a crucial stage in
the development of the individual human mind. It is a liberation
from ones desires, and liberation to make decisions, to choose
between alternatives, rather than merely to express self-interested
preferences. To prefer one thing over another is simply to suffer
desire for one thing among alternatives. Self-liberation from desire is
achieved by naming the desire, it is an act of speech, using the language of the community to which the person belongs. Collingwood
is not therefore talking about an isolated atomized individual, contracting via a pre-social state of nature. It is conversely an individual
who already belongs to a community, but who is not yet fully social.
The qualifications for conversion from the non-social community to
the social community vary according to the historical circumstances
facing bodies politics, and the capacities the ruling class deem the
ruled possess.
A body politic, for Collingwood, is thus a community comprised
of non-social and social elements, people capable of exercising free
will, or choice, and those who are not. The former are self-governing
and have freely agreed to associate, the latter are incapable of such
choice and are therefore governed by those who comprise the social
element. Because the relationship is unequal, the one ruling over the
other without their consent, an element of force is invariably involved.
This force cannot be totally eradicated, because a body politic can
never completely eliminate the non-social element, that is, those who
have not yet reached mental maturity. What Collingwood means by
force is moral or mental strength exercised by one person over
another in order to make him or her perform an act that the mentally
stronger wants. Force is relative in that anyone occupying a place at
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a higher level of consciousness than another is able to make that

weaker person comply with his or her will by the exercise of mental
strength or superiority.19
Ethics and the Common Good

Ethical themes permeate the bulk of Idealist political philosophy,

although the relation between ethics and politics still remains multifaceted. The key treatises on ethics for the British Idealists, between
the 1870s and the 1920s, were Bradleys Ethical Studies (1876) and
Greens Prolegomena to Ethics (1883). Others, such as Muirhead,
Mackenzie and Bosanquet, also wrote more synoptic works on ethics, but the former works by Green and Bradley retained a certain
pre-eminence.
Primarily, Idealistic ethics is premised on the idea of human sociality, although it is a complex and nuanced understanding of this
idea. Basically, sociality implies that ethics is a body of directives, to
which one is obligated, which are required both by other persons
and oneself, within a form of associated life. We might call this a
communal directive account of ethics. The fundamental aim of this
theory is to bring together, on the one hand, the individuals own
will and judgements, with, on the other hand, the laws and institutions of an organized life in the state. As a result, in Hegels terminology, the individual can be seen to be part of an ethical substance
that consists of laws and powers, where these substantial determinations are duties which are binding on the will of the individual.20
The relation of the individual to the communal directives is intricate.
It is not a relativist argument, such that any kinds of communal
directives are permissible. Rather, such directives refer to the necessary conditions for creating a moral obligation as embedded in a
rational state and premised on undergirding the freedom and selfrealization of its citizens. There is thus a duty imposed, but the
interests and particularity of the individual are lifted above any thin
or self-centred concerns. Moral obligations are seen to occur from
within the associated norms of a civil community of which they are
an element.
This idea of a social ethics outlined above is premised against the
backdrop of an Idealist ontology, namely a form of social individualism. As Bradley comments what we call an individual man is what he
is because of and by virtue of community, and communities are
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thus not mere names but something real, and can be regarded (if we
mean to keep to facts) only as the one in the many.21 In short, individuals are intrinsically social. Persons realize themselves as social
beings. The rational form of associated social life is usually correlated
by British Idealists with a form of civil state.
Certain oddities do though remain within Idealist ethics. One issue
concerns whether Idealist ethical theory is simply a form of metaethical reasoning and thus has, potentially, no justificatory role. This
complex relation between theory and practice is something that we
have noted in earlier chapters. For example, Bradley remarks in
Ethical Studies that: All philosophy has to do is to understand what
is, and moral philosophy has to understand morals which exist, not
to make them or give directions for making them. Philosophy in general has not to anticipate the discoveries of the particular sciences
nor the evolution of history; the philosophy of religion has not to
make a new religion political philosophy has not to play tricks
with the state, but to understand it; and ethics has not to make the
world moral.22 Philosophy looks back at the world cut and dried and
reflects critically upon what is.23 Moral practice is not something that
flows from the philosophers premises. Bradley caricatures the alternative view as the moral almanac view of the world (a view which
he thinks plagues utilitarians).24
Green unexpectedly articulates a very similar argument to both
Bradley and Hegel.25 He admits, for example, that most of us suffer
moral perplexity, yet philosophical theories of the good are generally
superfluous at such points.26 The concrete lived process is crucial for
morality, not overt philosophical arguments. As Green notes: Any
value which a true moral theory may have depends on its being
applied and interpreted by a mind in which the ideal, as a practical
principle, already actuates.27 Consequently, he contends that moral
ideas are not abstract conceptions. Conversely, they actuate men
independently of the operations of the discursive intellect.28 Such
ideas are deeply at work in human practices long before they are
philosophically understood.29 They not only give rise to institutions
and modes of life, but also express themselves in forms of the imagination, that is, in poetry and the arts generally.30 To get anything
from philosophy, one needs to have already had moral discipline, a
discipline that cannot be derived from philosophy.31He therefore
suggests that moral philosophy is only needed to remedy the evils
which it has itself caused.32
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This strand of Idealist ethical theorizing can also be observed in the

work of Michael Oakeshott, although he gives the argument an extra
contingent twist. Like Hegel, Bradley and to a degree Bosanquet,
Oakeshott contends that we come into a world already illuminated by
moral practice.33 Moral language is, however, a shifting body of conventions. He notes, vis--vis morality, that its abstract nouns (right
and wrong, proper and improper, obligation, dueness, fairness, respect,
justice, etc.), when they appear, are faded metaphors. He adds here,
with no doubt, a weather eye on many contemporaneous Kantian and
utilitarian political theorists of the 1970s and 1980s, it is only the
uneducated who insists that each must have a single unequivocal
meaning indifferent to context. Moral language, embodied in conduct, is never fixed or finished. It has no settled meaning. Echoing a
Wittgensteinian argument, he claims that moral language is only
learned in use. He comments that moral language is its vicissitudes,
and its virtue is to be a living, vulgar language.34 A language of moral
conduct has rhythms which remain when the words are forgotten.
Thus, there is a sense in which such language is an embedded substrate
of actions. Agents will, in fact, often lose any sense of its genesis and
ideal character, consequently, expressions in it harden into clichs
and are released again; the ill-educated speak it vulgarly, the purists
inflexibly, and each generation invents its own moral slang.35
To focus on moral rules as a large number of contemporary
moral philosophers do is, for Oakeshott, to engage in a distortion
of moral conduct. Rules are just abridgements, passing contingent
snapshots of fluid and restless phenomena. Rules suggest a rigid and
abstracted expression of such conduct. Thus, rules are not the reality
of morality or politics. Further, to focus excessive attention on the
justification of rules is also utterly misplaced, since it again cuts into
the living flesh of a moral language. Moral rules are not criteria of
good conduct, nor are they primarily instruments of judgement;
they are prevailing winds which agents should take account of in
sailing their several courses.36 Thus, morality cannot be just about
observed rules or obeying injunctions. It is also not concerned with
justification. It is a much more complex contingent process used for
both exploring ones own self and also ones interaction with other
agents. Rules can be elicited as representations of a moment, but
morality is emphatically not the same as that one moment, nor is
it the creation of moralists or grammarians (as Oakeshott phrases
it). It is made in and through ordinary conventional usage.
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A related idiosyncrasy within Idealist ethics concerns what actually marks out Idealist ethics as distinctive. Has it any specific character, such as the Kantian categorical imperative or the utilitarian
maximization of happiness? As indicated above, one popular response
to this question has been to emphasize the credo embedded in
Bradleys station and duties essay, although this has been occasionally modified into a form of relativistic communitarianism. This latter body of views characterizes many crude and uninformed estimates
of Idealist ethics. Henry Sidgwick, for example, in one of the first
hostile reviews of Bradleys Ethical Studies in Mind (1876), complains
that his Idealist ethics does not really advance much beyond a crude
sociological relativism.37 Sidgwick was clearly both just wrong and
ill-considered in his judgment, but it nonetheless encapsulated a very
pervasive cartoon version of Idealist ethics, which figures to the present day. In general, the station and duties essay and the crude sociologically inspired communitarianism both represent caricatured
misunderstandings of Idealism.
What is missing in such criticism (above) is another broad dimension
of Idealist ethical philosophy; this concerns the principles that ought to
govern our moral conduct. A philosophical ethics worth its salt should,
in this latter view, be providing rigorous justificatory reasons for specific
kinds of conduct. Some critics have argued that this dimension of
Idealist ethical theory is hampered by the relativist preoccupations of
the former more meta-ethically inclined argument. There is undoubtedly a philosophical problem here but it can be, in part, resolved in
terms of the argument laid out earlier linking the individuals will and
judgement with a particular type of rational social organization.38
The easiest way to look at this latter normative idea is in the context of Greens arguments on the common good. The underpinning
for this latter argument can be found in Greens Prolegomena to
Ethics, which tries to give the philosophical grounds for what, in a
sense, we know already and indeed practice. This sense of already
known reflects what Green, Bradley and Bosanquet think of as the
concrete lived process, which precedes explicit philosophical argument. It is the extant institutions of civil society, the laws, conventions, religion and literature, which both embody and suggest such
moral ideas. Morality is not invented, but articulated from within
existing practices.
Greens philosophical arguments here involve an extended refutation of the idea of naturalistic explanation of human action. Further,
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for Green there can be no naturalistic account of morals. Green, like

Kant, counters naturalism by arguing that experience is not a chaotic manifold, but is rather the awareness of an enduring unified subject. He differs from Kant insofar as the experiential manifold cannot
be accounted for independently of the activity of the human mind.
This is because it is only minds or consciousness that can make intellectual relationships. The self is the author of the world it knows.
Mind is its own act. Without the conscious subject presupposed in
experience any experience would be impossible. Thus, knowledge
of the experiential world (and nature) could not explain the nature of
knowledge.
Green has a specific moral purpose in refuting naturalism. A
human driven solely by natural instincts makes little sense of morality. It is in the individual minds activity that morality can be found.
In each individual there is a spiritual possibility, which stands above
the naturalistic claim. Humans are thus distinguished from animals
by the ability to self-consciously think about their desires. The fact
that a desire is conceived implies that the self is distinguished from
the desire. The conceived desire is a motive. A motive is therefore not
physiologically caused, but is rather an end which a conscious subject presents to itself and which it strives to realize in actions. The
self posits an object that will satisfy the conceived desire. A desire
might thus be seen as a tendency to realize an object. Inall actions,
an individual is positing an object that will satisfy the conceived
desire, a state that he or she takes to be good. A conscious human
mind thus pursues ends that are not caused, but rather self-posited.
However, for Idealists such as Green, the good is the object that
truly satisfies the self, something that constitutes a more complete
realization of the self. Pleasure and happiness are possible by-products of moral action. However, the self could not be identified with
such by-products. The good could not be a discrete passing sensation. Epistemologically, Idealists associated this idea of discrete
passing sensations with atomistic and extreme individualist theory.
In this sense, knowledge was derived from sensations, perceptions
and experiences, via an engagement with an external world. Truth
claims therefore entailed correspondence with this external world.
For Idealists, in very general terms (as we have already seen), the self
could not be identified with any series of discrete perceptions, experiences or sensations, since the self, as such, was seen as the presupposition to there being any sensations, perceptions of experiences,
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particularly sensations or experiences that were identified in terms of

a series. For Idealism therefore knowledge of the world exists only in
the context of the self-conscious subject. There could be no experience of things antecedent to the conscious subject. Thus, a consistent
empiricist account of knowledge (characteristic of utilitarian
thought) would literally be speechless unless it presupposed a conscious subject as the ground for such a series.
Morally, utilitarianism was therefore seen as a seriously problematic doctrine insofar as it was linked in the minds of most Idealists to
an unsubstantiated abstract atomism. Utilitarianism was seen to
treat human individuals as, more or less, self-enclosed homogeneous
moral atoms, with similar feelings that could be mechanically quantified, and among whom a quantity of pleasures could be distributed. Its demand on institutions was that they justified themselves in
terms of their conduciveness to the general happiness. Utilitarianism
consequently assumed a narrow uniformity of human nature over
time and place. It combined the abstract individualism of treating
every person as a discrete unit, with the abstract universalism concerning its view of happiness, which is taken to have an existence
divorced from the concrete individuals who are singularly capable of
experiencing it.
Green, in rejecting utilitarianism, argued that certain objects of
will are more conducive to self-realization. Moral activity is the pursuit of an ideal set by ourselves and to which we aspire; it constitutes
a possible self that we could become. In the moral sphere, this entails
constant endeavours. Freedom is understood as motivated action
that transforms impulses and instincts to serve ends and purposes
with which one has identified ones self. Freedom is thus self-realization and actualization of the possible self. The moral ideal, which is
the object of free endeavour, is the realization of the good will, that
is to say, the will that transforms and transfigures the passions and
instincts. If one specified this ideal in more detail, there is then no
hard and fast distinction between an individual and a public good;
an individuals possible self has an intrinsic social dimension.
Another way of describing this whole social dimension is the common good.
The common good is, for Green, the complete realization of the
potential of the human being.39 This entails a maturity of a character, which wills the good, because it is good. Individuals only
turn out to be good if they take the perfection of their character in
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themselves and others as their endeavour. The good is common in

being the same good for all. It is therefore non-competitive.40 Further,
the common good cannot be any material object, which could be
contended for, although there could be a conflict between a moral
and material interest. Putting material goods first is, by definition,
selfishness. The common good is the moral ideal, which should organize and guide a persons action. It presents a motive for action and
a standard to evaluate actions. Many pre-1914 Idealists followed
Green on this particular line of argument.
Green also suggests that there are criteria that allow one to ascertain whether a particular law or policy reflects the common good.
Thus it should be good for all, no one should gain by anothers loss,
and everyone should be considered equally in terms of loss and gain.
This common good is, in fact, crucial to Greens theory; it provides
the basis for his whole discussion of politics. Laws, institutions and
states only have significance insofar as they contribute to the common good. These structures do not make men moral in themselves,
that requires motives and reasons, but they can provide a crucial
enabling function.
One critical point to note here is that Green himself indicates, at
points, that the common good is not an overtly distributive principle.
The common good was not concerned with the equal ownership of
resources or equal distribution. Material equalities alone will not
achieve a common good. Material goods are mutable, finite and
scarce. Mutual respect and citizenship did not for Green require
therefore a radical revision of inequalities of property. However,
unquestionably this argument gave rise to a number of hostages to
fortune in Idealist argument. On one count (as indicated earlier in
this chapter), it is clear that Bosanquet derived his theory of citizenship, and containment of state action with regard to poverty, from
the principles outlined in one reading of Greens account of the common good. Problematically, though, the common good can be seen
to be explicitly identified with particular capacities, and in an environment with scare resources, this could lead to potential competition. Green is clearly hesitant on this issue. He comments, for
example, in comparing Greek slavery to modern industrial work,
that all humans have the exact same undeveloped possibility. There
is thus an underlying expectation of formal equality in civil states.
He continues that no one in a civilized state can enjoy their condition
when the mass of men whom we call our brethren, and whom we
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declare to be meant with us for eternal destinies, are left without the
chance of making themselves in act what in possibility we believe
them to be.41 The implication of Greens argument, both here and in
his writings on liberalism and positive liberty, indicates that materially some citizens might have to forgo some of their property interests for the sake of others development. In this sense, as other
Idealists such as Ritchie and Jones clearly read him, the common
good argument entailed an impetus towards social justice and distribution, if only to enable and provide equal opportunities for citizens.
It is here that we find the intellectual grounds for Greens ethical
socialist legacy.42
Rights

Idealists developed a distinctive theory of rights, which rejected conceptions of natural rights both in their normative and naturalistic
forms. The natural right legacy, which posited universal laws independent of the individuals who were subject to them and either written in mens hearts, or apprehended by the exercise of pure reason,
did not, for them, pay adequate attention to the interests and motivations of individuals. They were abstract laws capable of many interpretations when translated into concrete situations. Such laws were
exemplified by Locke in his Second Treatise. The rights we have are
derivative from the laws and generally have correlative obligations. If
I have a right to private property, and I own a piece of land, you have
a duty to respect my right to the use of that land unhindered. The
foundation upon which these rights were based usually and ultimately
rested upon a belief in a Divine power, which provided justification
for why I may be obligated to perform such a duty. Even Grotius,
who is often said to have secularized the natural rights tradition,
always resorted to arguments that brought God back into the equation as the ultimate source of obligation. Reason facilitates our comprehension of natural laws, both a priori and a posteriori, but no
amount of reason can create an obligation to discharge the duties
associated with these rights. The obligation ultimately rests on Gods
will.
On the other hand, the Idealists were also critical of naturalistic,
or descriptive, conceptions of natural rights. These are the natural
rights about which Hobbes wrote. They relate more to our appetites

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and desires than to reason. They are rights without obligations, and
when everyone has a right to everything, no one has a right to anything. If I take an apple off a tree, I have a right to it because I want
it, but if you also want it you too have a right, what decides the matter
will be the superior strength or force of one of the disputants. If a
wild beast cannot live without meat, then it has a right to kill and eat
its prey. If I happen to be the object of the animals appetite, I have no
correlative obligation to submit to its will. In other words, they are
not moral rights. The foundation of these rights is basic human nature,
or appetite and instinct. We have seen already that nature cannot for
the Idealists be the basis of morality, and the isolated unencumbered
self upon which these rights are posited is a fiction.
The British Idealists formulated the rights recognition thesis in
reaction to natural rights theories. Philosophically traditional natural rights theories had been discredited, but the rhetoric of natural
rights was still very much alive in political debate across the range of
ideological persuasions. While rejecting the traditional formulations
of natural rights, they did not want to deny that some rights are so
fundamental that without them we would cease to be what we are,
and in this sense they are fundamental, and therefore just as well be
regarded as natural.
T. H. Green sets the tone for the Idealist theory. For Green rights
exist independently of political society. They are manifest in the family, even among a group of slaves in their relations with each other,
and within the broader community to which they are related. In
Greens view, a person develops through the development of society,
and this was something that natural rights theorists such as Spinoza,
Hobbes and Locke were unable to appreciate. They were mistaken in
thinking that the higher essence of the person could be separated
from the social norms of society. The question for Green was why in
their relations with others certain powers are recognized by people as
those that ought to be exercised or secured for possible exercise.
Rights are, for Green, those powers possessed by an individual
that others recognize as necessary for the achievement of a shared
good.43 There are three elements to this claim. First, a right is a
power; secondly, it is recognized by society, or by other persons; and
thirdly, it is a contribution to a common good. Recognition makes
rights, and therefore recognition is a necessary condition, along with
the fact that they must also be powers and contribute to the common

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good. Society is able to justify the possession of powers, or capabilities,

by individuals and those that it exercises over them because they are
a necessary prerequisite to fulfilling mans vocation as a moral
being.44 We understand rights in this way, not because they are natural, but because the individual has the capacity to imagine a good
that is common, which is the same for others as for himself, or herself, and is inspired to act on that conception. Rights are what enable
our capacities to be realized, and serve to define the moral person.45
Despite the fact that a person is not born with the rights or powers
necessary for fulfilling such a conception of the moral person, and
does not possess them outside of society, they[rights] are not arbitrary creations of law or custom. They are natural in a different sense
from that required in the natural law and natural rights traditions
because they arise out of, and are necessary for the fulfilment of, a
moral capacity without which a man would not be a man.46 David
Ritchie understood such rights to be natural only in the sense that
they are those legal or customary rights we have come to believe
most advantageous to recognise.47 Rights are an appeal to what is
socially useful for both the present and future generations, and where
possible for humanity as a whole.48
While there are variations among the Idealists on matters of detail,
the recognition theory of rights as articulated by each has certain
common features in addition to the rejection of the descriptive and
prescriptive versions of natural rights. The Idealists believe that the
definition of a right is inextricably tied to social recognition, by society or the state, or both. Rights do not exist without recognition. In
Green, there are two senses to the term, which are not always clearly
distinguished. Recognition as the creation of a right, and recognition
as acknowledging that a rule or practice is a right. Justification is
separate from definition. A right is justified by its contribution to the
common good, understood by each to be common to all. This is
what is typically known as the general will, which must be distinguished from the particular wills of sectional interests. Both the definition and justification of a right are designed to refute the charge
that on the descriptive model they are capricious and arbitrary based
on individual self-interest and human desires, and on the intuitionist
model they are abstract and incapable of being translated into moral
imperatives. In summary, rights are firmly embedded in and are
dependent on moral communities. We will see in Chapter 6 how these
communities may even extend beyond state borders.
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Individuality and Citizenship

As suggested earlier, the idea of society based on mutual individual

limitation and contract was a prevalent theme underpinning nineteenth-century classical liberal political theory and practice. For
Henry Sidgwick, for example, in his Elements of Politics (1897), contract was seen to be of fundamental importance for the whole individualistic structure. The contract was essential to unite the individual
atoms of society. The concept of the citizen deployed in such classical liberal thinking might loosely be described as negative in character. The citizen was viewed as an independent agent with partially
preformed desires and interests. The function of any public order
was to protect and uphold these fundamental atomized human interests. These interests were often spoken of in terms of rights natural
or civil. Citizenship was thus conceived negatively in terms of the
legal protection of pre-existing rights to, for example, life, liberty and
property. The actual private concerns and interests of individuals
were though distinct from the formal but minimal public ethos of
citizenship although at the same time the notion of the citizen still
implied an internal private autonomy of the individual. For classical
liberal theorists, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century,
although individuals may have lost some of the civic benefits of
close communal life, nonetheless, they had gained from the privacy,
modern liberty and new found prosperity of commercial liberal society. Classical liberal views on citizenship generally excluded any positive rights or entitlements to economic and social resources, as parts
of any programme of collective good or social justice. Unencumbered
economic markets, within this perspective, were the preferred mode
of resource allocation. Essentially, this was a procedural, minimal,
constitutional and rule of law governed understanding of politics.
The Idealist response to this latter vision of liberal individuality
drew upon a distinction between two important senses of individualism, that is, an older and newer variant or alternatively a passive and
active variant. These terms also correspond with distinct understandings of citizenship. The older individualism (of classical liberalism),
which envisaged society as an aggregation of atomized particulars,
gave a thin and inaccurate reading of social life for most Idealists. The
units of analysis were empty asocial individuals.49 Thin individualism,
which was seen as both abstractly conceived and socially false (whether
it appeared in Jacobin revolutionaries or abstract liberal political
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economy), was the root to passive or negative citizenship, as found in

the classical liberal views of Sidgwick, Bentham and Spencer.
Conversely, for British Idealists, the thicker or richer understanding
of social individualism or positive individualism recognized the
deep social nature of humans, rooted in the idea of citizens having a
common social identity and substance and actually recognizing a
sense of the common good. The older individualisms appeal to the
importance of self-help and character cut little ice for Idealists. Selfhelp and character were not something that flourished in glorious
social isolation; rather, as Henry Jones put it succinctly, The interpreter of character can no longer rely on the old individualism: he
must study it in relation to the social life, of which it is both cause and
effect, both expression and product.50
Civil association and the state were, for the Idealists, viewed as
rooted in the social nature of human beings (as indicated in previous
sections). They were the means for individual self-realization and
character development. They existed to draw forth the potentialities
of the individual. The possibility for such development depended
upon the existence of articulate and ethically rooted social institutions. Each human individual was thus seen as a spiritual possibility,
which could be realized through civil association. Human good was
identified with practices that provided an enduring contribution to
the common good of fellow citizens. It was this common good (as
embodied in the state) that provided true satisfaction for a more
permanent understanding of the human self.51 The permanent self
was thus at one with the common good.
Civic institutions were the outward form or expression of these
moral ideals. Therefore the only justification for civic institutions
was their contribution towards the moral development of individuals. The communal good could not therefore be divorced from the
individual good. Individuals only had rights and duties as members
of the civic community a community that should enable individuals to develop. Green, Bosanquet, Caird, Jones, Ritchie, among
others, all shared similar concerns here. They all wished to transcend
what they believed to be the false opposition between individualism
and collectivism. There were though some exceptions to this thesis in
the Idealist ranks. For example, Michael Oakeshott, particularly in
works such Rationalism in Politics (1962) and On Human Conduct
(1975), moved away from the above Idealist arguments towards a
more limited conception of the states role as a civil association
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(as distinct from an enterprise association). Oakeshott, together with

F. H. Bradley, thus tended to be more sceptical in his Idealism and
indeed his political ideas. The crucial distinction, for Oakeshott, was
between instrumental rules appropriate for achieving substantive
purposes, and appropriate to joint enterprises with specific goals,
such as the maximization of production and profit, and non-instrumental rules. These are rules that are adjectival, and are taken into
account when making our own decisions about substantive ends.
These latter rules are more appropriate to civil association, and therefore limit the extent to which the state may formulate and implement
five-year plans or substantive common goals. Every state is the
embodiment of the two ideal characters he articulates, but in the
modern era, he regrets, enterprise association has tended to dominate. Oakeshotts concern reflects the reservations that earlier
Idealists had that any increase in state activity must be justified in
terms of enhancing individual responsibility and increasing their
capacities for choice.
In terms of the earlier main elements of the Idealist school Green,
Bosanquet, Caird and Jones the central category of political philosophy was and remained citizenship. This had intrinsic connections to concepts such as positive liberty, morality, the common good
and character. Citizenship implied a consciousness of the ethical
ends of human life as embodied within the institutional structures of
the state, in other words, a consciousness of the common good.
Citizenship was not just a political or legal category. It was a state of
mind and social being. It carried theological, epistemological and
ontological implications. The citizen assimilated ethical norms by
participating in social life. Citizenship thus denoted a high level of
civic awareness, moral character, rationality and a strong sense of
duty. In terms of this strong sense of citizenship, the state was consequently seen as the organized body within which this citizen consciousness functions. For Idealists, society and its institutional
structures were the means to individual self-realization. Social institutions were justified only to the extent that they furthered the selfrealization of individuals.
Idealists tended to view all political concepts from this general
standpoint. Rights, duties, property and freedom were conditional
devices to allow individuals to realize their (ethical) powers and abilities and thus the common good. It was only by willing the common
good that the citizens became truly free. The nub of the Idealist
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vision of politics was therefore that of providing an ethical enabling

state. If there was one important intellectual bequest from Idealism,
it was an ethical theory of citizenship combined with the enabling
state. This also provided one important undergirding for the earlytwentieth-century vision of the welfare state.
The above argument did leave a problematic legacy to the twentieth
century. It underpinned to a degree the new liberal understandings
of state, welfare and citizenship in the 1900s. The Idealist legacy on
this issue was ambivalent for two reasons. First, Idealism was essentially trying to adapt active civic citizenship ideas to British liberalism. Secondly, the more antique Greek side of the Idealist civic
legacy was strongly present in many Idealist writers. Bernard
Bosanquet provides one example of this tendency. In his article The
Duties of Citizenship (1895), Bosanquet commented ruefully that
The commonest Greek citizen could never altogether forget that his
actual existence was bound up with the discharge of civic duty.
Bosanquet goes on to complain that even the most educated citizen
in Britain in the 1890s, of his time, did not appear to grasp the need
for civic duties. Individual acquisitive self-interest was uppermost.52
Bosanquets, like T.H. Greens, interest in citizenship was therefore
duty-orientated. Both lamented the growth of liberal individualist
self-interest and conversely stressed the need for strong civic duties
correlative with rights. The citizen was not simply the passive recipient of rights, but an active self-realizing being with recognized civic
duties to fellow citizens.
The new liberal conception of citizenship, which reacted to the
classical liberal perspective from the 1880s, was initially theorized in
terms of civic duties, as well as a more expansive vision of rights. The
civic duty component was crucial to the initial justification of the
welfare state in the pre-1914 period. Yet, the stress on liberal rights
also maintained an underlying self-conscious continuity with classical liberalism. This continuity had an unexpected cost. The emphasis
on rights slowly weakened the idea of public-spirited civic duties as
correlative to such rights. By deploying such negative rights language
new liberals, unintentionally, set the stage for the gradual decline,
during the twentieth century, of solidaristic notions of public-spirited civic duty. From its inception, the new liberalism therefore
embodied a complex tension, which has carried through to the present day in Britain. This tension focused on the conflict between
civism and civility, between an essentially rights-orientated passive
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recipience vision (which tended to affect the way individuals viewed

welfare and distributive justice) and a civic activist vision of duties to
the common good. This tension highlights part of the late-twentiethcentury sense of crisis within the welfare state a crisis centred on
the conflict between passive rights entitlements and active civic
duties. Paradoxically, this complex tension was introduced by the
new liberalism, via some of the important writings of British
Idealism.
Conclusion

In politics and morality, particularly before 1914, British Idealist

philosophy precipitated, in many minds, a fundamental reassessment
of some of the key values of liberalism, the state and the purpose of
political life. T.H. Green, as indicated, was a particularly important
figure. The Idealists did not suggest a wholesale revision of civil and
moral existence, more a bringing to fruition of some of its latent
tendencies for social reform, implicit in the liberal state. In certain
cases, the Idealist ethical and political philosophy, with some notable
exceptions, provided a cogent rationale for a more welfare-orientated
social liberalism, enabling it to meet, more humanely, the problems
of an increasingly complex industrial society. This latter Idealist
vision of the state largely prevailed as a background thematic in
Britain until the 1980s, when we see, ironically, the rebirth of its old
adversary, that is, classical liberal market-orientated theory.

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Chapter five

Idealism as a Practical Creed

Introduction

Having outlined some of the central components of Idealist metaphysics, epistemology, political and moral philosophy, the focus now
shifts to some of the more specific practical applications of British
Idealist thought. Idealism saw itself, particularly in many of its pre1914 exponents, as an immensely practical philosophy. As should be
obvious by now, there were other Idealists who were deeply sceptical
of this impetus. However, certainly in terms of the earlier group, the
sceptics were largely in a minority on this practical issue. The present
discussion will centre on the political and ideological context of
British Idealist thought, particularly the interplay with doctrines
such as Liberalism and socialism. This will then lead to a consideration of the issues of education, poverty, social work, property, temperance and liberty.
Political Context

We should not lose sight of the fact that during the early years of the
twentieth century, mainstream intellectual debate was less compartmentalized and more obviously elitist than it is today. There was a
great deal of personal and intellectual contact between people, who
described themselves as belonging to different political persuasions,
but who nevertheless moved in relatively fluid social circles. Liberals
and democratic socialist thinkers largely inhabited the same intellectual milieu, often together with the more intellectual conservatives
and libertarians. They belonged to the same organizations and discussion groups and often became related to one another through
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marriage. The Idealist and Liberal politician R. B. Haldane was a

close personal friend of the Fabian socialist Webbs, and Henry Jones
was an acquaintance of the socialist writer Sidney Ball. L.T.
Hobhouse, despite his deep criticism of Bosanquet, remained a lifelong admirer of T. H. Green as well as an acute and sympathetic
observer of the labour movement. D. G. Ritchie was also a member
of the Fabian society for a number of years. It was Edward Caird
who persuaded R. H. Tawney and William Beveridge to visit the
Idealist-inspired Toynbee Hall University Settlement. Beveridge later
became Tawneys brother-in-law. Tawney became a member of the
Fabian Society only in 1906 and the Independent Labour Party
in 1909, but nevertheless remained close to New Liberals and was
intellectually indebted to Idealism. What united many of the Idealists,
New Liberals, Liberal Socialists and Social Democrats at this time
was a fundamental agreement that classical Liberalism had produced
social and economic conditions of such deplorable dimensions, that
the deliverance of many working people from their wretched predicament was seen as a deep humanistic duty. It was thus common
among progressives to acknowledge the considerable overlaps
between the New Liberalism and Democratic Socialism.
Are Radicals Socialist?

British Idealists had a fluid relation with contemporaneous ideologies, particularly Socialism and Liberalism. Many retained a close
sympathy and in some cases, such as Green, Jones, Bosanquet and
Haldane, a direct association with the Liberal Party. Despite this
association with Liberalism, there was nonetheless a strong underlying admiration, from the earliest years of Idealism, for the more
radical aspect of Liberal politics. By the Edwardian era, this led, in
some cases, to a direct sympathy and qualified support for the parliamentary democratic socialism of the Independent Labour Party.1
In1882, Arnold Toynbee a student of T.H. Green gave a speech
in Newcastle entitled Are Radicals Socialist?. The theme of the
speech was addressed largely to British Liberals concerned about the
rising tide of state growth. As Toynbee noted, for many in the Liberal
Party startling legislative measures have been defended by arguments in sharp contrast to the ancient principles [of liberalism].
However, the gravest of the charges was that some form of socialism
underpinned such liberal measures socialism being a system which
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in the past [liberals] strained every nerve to oppose.2 Toynbee was

referring here to a range of measures, such as the Irish Land Bill
(1881), The Ground Game Act (1880) and The Employers Liability
Act (1880). For Toynbee, the Liberal radicals were using the same
vocabulary as older Liberals, but they were subtly modifying it from
within. Such Acts, for Toynbee, demonstrated that radicals were not
socialists in the sense advocated by Robert Owen, but they were none
theless advocating a subtly different form of socialism. One essential
aspect of this new radicalism was that there could not be genuine
freedom of contract between unequals. Toynbees key point here was
that the social and moral principles defended by earlier Liberals were
being extended by radicals in the 1880s, through richer readings of
social equality and freedom. Liberal radicals were now cognizant of
the argument that under certain conditions the people cannot help
themselves, and that then they should be helped by the state representing directly the whole people.3 The flexibility of the principles
of Liberalism for Toynbee was such as to give rise to new understated forms of political interpretation. As T. H. Green commented,
in a similar vein:
The immediate object of reformers and the form of persuasion
by which they seek to advance them, vary much in different generations. To the hasty observer they might even seem contradictory, and to justify the notion that nothing better than a desire for
change selfish or perverse is at the bottom of all reforming movements. Only those who think a little longer about it can discern
the same old cause of social good against class interests, for which
under altered names, liberals are fighting now as they were fifty
years ago.4
The problematic socialism that Toynbee had in mind here was initially associated with what is now called Utopian socialism, that is,
the work of, for example, Charles Fourier and Robert Owen. Marxian
socialism, although having an impact in France and Germany from
the 1870s, initially had little significant role in British political
thought and practice. It was first embodied in Britain, in an eccentric
form, in the 1880s Social Democratic Federation, whose effect was
minimal. Marxism, as such, did not really take off until the 1920s
in Britain, and even then tended to remain at one remove from the
mainstream of British socialist thought. It was also rejected by the
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British tradition of democratic socialism, beginning with the Fabians

and early Independent Labour Party in the 1890s. Many British
Idealists were clearly aware of the existence of Marxian socialism
from the 1890s, but took it to be relatively inconsequential.
There was a definite community of views among British Idealists
on socialism, which echoed Toynbees distinction between acceptable
and unacceptable readings. In effect, British Idealists focused on two
broad forms of socialist thought. The first was (in their view) instrumental and mechanistic. It maintained that public ownership and
the imposition of rigid material equality through the state sufficed.
In other words, it placed heavy reliance on the collectivized administered vision of the state. Idealists tended to associate this form with
the administrative statism of the Fabians, particularly the work of
Sidney and Beatrice Webb, as well as some of the earlier Utopian and
materialistic socialisms. Thus, Edward Caird noted like J. S. Mill in
Chapters on Socialism a distinction between a more dogmatic
socialism, which he associated with Robert Owen and Charles
Fourier, and a new socialism, which was ethical in character. Caird
mentioned the Fabian socialist, Sidney Ball, as an exemplification of
the latter. This truer socialism was seen to provide a more effective
opposition to the individualistic tendencies of classical Liberalism.5
A similar distinction was drawn by J. S. Mackenzie, in his
Introduction to Social Philosophy (1895), between ethical socialism
and scientific socialism. Mackenzie associated the latter quite
explicitly with Marxism. However, Mackenzie did admit that socialism is a term of great elasticity of meaning, and it covers a variety of
proposals. Bernard Bosanquet, in a contemporaneous and wellrespected article, also made a similar distinction, although his categories are economic as against ethical socialism.6 Bosanquet had
his own long-running acrimonious disputes with the Webbs over the
reform of the Poor Law in the first decade of the 1900s. Henry Jones
also tended to think of the Fabians as a key point of critical reference for one sense of socialism. Although agreeing with Caird on the
valuable ethical dimension of Sidney Balls work, Jones also felt that
the Webbs emphasis on administrative statism was socially destructive. The indistinct sense of Fabianism within these debates was due
largely to the fact that Fabianism itself embodied a wide diversity of
beliefs about socialism. One should also recall, for example, that the
Idealist D. G. Ritchie was a member of the society for a number of
years.
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Consequently, in sum, for the majority of British Idealists one

form of socialism was regarded as preferable and truer. Thus
Jones, for example, drew a sharp distinction between what he referred
to as true and false socialisms, rejecting what he called authoritarian socialism. Alternatively, he praised the true socialism as one
that was ultimately compatible with a radical Liberalism; it stressed
the ethical dimension over the material, economic or scientific
issues. Characteristically, though, both types of socialism were associated with the growth of the state. In other words, there were both
enabling and disabling forms of statism.
Liberalism

Liberalism, like socialism, was a movable feast for the British

Idealists, characterized by a distinction parallel to socialism
between two distinct forms. This has been variously categorized as a
distinction between classical and social or New Liberalism. Idealists
saw undoubted benefits within nineteenth-century classical Liberalism.
It enshrined the rights to private property and individual liberty. It
allowed individuals room to develop, giving maximum space to selfhelp and thrift. It also embodied commitments to the rule of law and
constitutional government. The Idealist critique was not so much
therefore to abandon classical Liberalism as to reinterpret it and
transform it from within. This implied neither a seismic shift of
thought, nor a simple amalgamation, rather a fluid development of
interpretation around formal conceptual themes. Arguments and
ideas were seen to evolve. In fact, Idealists traded on this latter idea.
There were therefore no sudden transitions between these types of
Liberalism.
The term New Liberal itself appeared in public discussion in
Britain in the 1890s. Other terms were employed to denote the purported change of liberal perspective. Radical, progressive or social
liberal denoted roughly the same idea. As we saw, none of these
terms were meant to indicate a total revolutionary change of view,
but rather an evolution of ideas. There is still, like the New Right
in the 1980s, some ambiguity as to who should be associated with the
New Liberalism and about the character of its ideology.7 An immense
amount of scholarly debate still surrounds this issue.8
Formally, the New Liberalism was committed to a social individualism: the good of the individual was seen as tied to the good of the
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whole community. The atomism of the formal classical view came to

be regarded as morally and sociologically naive. Poverty, unemployment and illness were not just the concern of the single individual,
but were social issues and dealing with them transcended individual
capacities. Further, liberty was not just leaving individuals alone, but
was identified with the fuller life of genuine citizenship. Freedom
was a fundamentally important value. Yet, for Idealists, freedom
equated with the common good, not civil privatism. Preventing
humans from performing socially harmful actions was, in itself, no
restraint on the individual. Finally, many advocated a modified conception of a market economy and a more responsive, sensitive and
ethical conception of the state. The upshot of the increasing stress,
which some classical Liberals at the time placed on the commercial
mentality was, for Idealists and many New Liberals, socially, morally
and politically destructive. It was thus common among progressive
Liberals to acknowledge the considerable debt the New Liberalism
owed to ethical socialism.
T. H. Greens essay Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract
is invaluable for understanding the inception of this New Liberalism.
Greens essay, like Toynbees cited earlier, was written to reassure the
Liberals, in the early 1880s, over the gradual shifting character of
their legislative programme. He constructed an historical picture of
Liberal concerns. First, Liberalism had struggled for political freedoms against aristocratic privileges. Secondly, with figures such as
Cobden and Bright, it had struggled for economic freedoms against
protectionism. However, Liberalism was moving into a third phase,
characterized by social freedoms. For Liberals concerned about freedom of contract, Green asked: What is freedom? He answered that
freedom was a positive power of doing or enjoying something worth
doing or enjoying.9 Positive freedom was identified with rational
and moral action, a reconciliation of the objects of will and the
objects of reason, that is, willing the common good. Such a principle
was coincidental with self-realization, developed character and genuine citizenship. The progress of society was thus measured by the
growth of this freedom. Simply being left alone negative freedom
was what Green called the primitive sense of the term and was of
little or no assistance to a citizens moral development. Thus, when
Liberals spoke of freedom of contract it was not just freedom from
restraint, but rather the maximum power of all citizens of a community to make the best of themselves.
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The New Liberal minister and British Idealist, R. B. Haldane,

using Greens lecture as a template to understand the New Liberalism,
extended the above argument into considering the role of the Labour
Party (which he finally joined after the First World War and became
its first Lord Chancellor). Haldane argued that one should not judge
the democratic socialist movement, prima facie, by their overt policy
proposals, but rather through their view that all should have something approaching to equality of choice in life. Thus, one should not
become obsessed (as many critics had) with certain socialist policies,
such as nationalization. What really lies behind the socialist movement is a change (as both Toynbee and Green had argued) in the
ideas of human freedom and equality. Haldane also suggested that
this is one key reason why Liberalism failed so dismally from the
1920s onwards, namely, that many Liberals failed to realize in
the beginning of 1906 that the spirit was rapidly changing, and that
the outlook of Victorian Liberalism was not sufficient for the progressive movement.10 Haldane felt there was clear evidence of these
subtle ideational changes among the mass of working people and
their support for democratic socialist policies. He added that this
change of spirit was also present among more enlightened and
less prejudiced representatives of the Universities. He contended
that the teaching of Idealists such as Thomas Hill Green was penetrating deeply, and that turned on much more than laissez-faire.
Thus, although the actual policies of the New Liberalism, particularly in the period 19061914, were regarded by Haldane as immensely
important, and he supported the large majority of them, nonetheless, what was more significant for him was the deep organising historical themes or ideas, which transcended both the New Liberal
project and indeed democratic socialism.11 Organizing fundamental
ethical ideas (or colligating ideas, to use Jones terminology) thus
had their own inner momentum and logic.
Class

One concept, however, did draw a distinction between socialism and

Liberalism, and that was class. Socialists were often deeply concerned
about the unequal character of classes highlighted under Liberal
capitalism. In this context, many saw democratic socialism focusing
critically on the selfishness of one property-owning class. For the
British Idealist, this analysis conflicted with the centrality of equal
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citizenship. For the Idealists, membership of a community came

prior to any notion of class. Furthermore, we are all equally citizens
and this was the first loyalty. Writing in1898, Bosanquets wife Helen
commented that many socialists were still trying to enunciate Marx
and Engels principle of class struggle but the cry has found a faint
echo, and the policy of direct warfare [of classes] has been almost
entirely abandoned for one of compromise and permeation.12 The
allusion to permeation is to the Fabian socialists, who also rejected
class-based analysis.
Henry Jones reflected the same basic logic in an essay entitled The
Corruption of the Citizenship of the Working Man. He remarked:
If I had the power, as I have the will, I would arraign the Labour
Party before the national conscience and ask it to show cause why it
should not be condemned for corrupting the citizenship of the working man.13 The basic contention was familiar, namely, that the Labour
Partys analysis of society was both morally and intellectually flawed
insofar as it appealed to factional interests over and against the common good and citizenship. However, it would also be true to say that
many democratic socialists at the time, even Ramsay MacDonald
(who was the target for Joness article), rejected the idea of class.
Basically, the Idealist argument was that the class analysis of society
was unhelpful, if not destructive. Idealists were not, however, nave
about class divisions. They were clearly aware of a problem. Bernard
Bosanquet, for example, commented on this in despondent tones,
namely: We are not sensitive and awake to each others needs, wants
and feelings. The minds of classes are not in thorough reciprocal contact; and while this is so, the fully developed class-consciousness can
hardly mean anything but the war of classes.14 British Idealists thus
argued for a revitalization of active citizenship, that is, the encouragement for the population to realize their common will and purpose, in
order to supplant both individualistic and sectional concerns.
Citizenship, it should be recalled, was not just a political or legal
category. It was regarded as a state of mind. Individual citizens were
seen to be rational and moral agents able to advance arguments and
to deliberate and judge. The realization of citizenship denoted a
change of ideas and will and as argued in the previous chapter, for
Idealists, will not force was seen as the basis of the state. Further, the
breadth and character of a citizens life were determined by the nature
of the embedded purposes or colligating ideas. Human conduct was
ultimately dependent on the nature of the purposes and ideas
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adopted by the agent and citizen. Thus, as Henry Jones put it, the
petty life has petty and secluded interests, whereas, the interests of
[the] neighbourhood, [the] city thud in the arteries of the good
man.15 The most comprehensive ideas are communal in nature and
thus express common values and a common sense of identity. All the
British Idealists had a contiguous powerful sense of the role of ideas
in reforming social reality through citizenship.
Education

The question arises how this idea of citizenship was to be cultivated.

It is here that we find a complex range of practical ideas within the
British Idealist movement. One of the primary practical motifs,
which underpinned this process, was education. The Idealist interest
in education was integral to their whole philosophy. Idealism, in fact,
as a more general philosophical movement, took a passionate interest in both educational theory and practice. This included British,
German and Italian Idealism. In each case there were clear examples
of sophisticated educational theorizing as well as, in some cases,
direct engagement with educational practices. For example, both
Green and Haldane in Britain and Giovanni Gentile in Italy were
directly involved in educational policy formulation.16 British Idealists
developed ideas on education, particularly in the period between
1870 and the 1920s. The philosophical background to these ideas lay
largely in the writings of G.W.F. Hegel. It is not often fully appreciated that Hegel himself had started life as a schoolmaster and later
headmaster (for a number of years) and carefully designed his own
educational teaching curriculum, which had quite explicit Idealist
philosophical principles supporting it.17 In fact, in more general
terms, the German model of educational practice (as well as the philosophic underpinnings) served as a formidable inspiration for British
Idealist educationalists, well into the early twentieth century.
There were various linked senses of education at work in most
Idealists writers, particularly in the British case. First, education was
regarded as premised on a collection of sciences, which required
communication and instruction. Knowledge was embodied abstractly
inall the various disciplines, with the one proviso that in the final
analysis all the sciences found their unity and were resolved in philosophy. There was, in other words, a systematic connection between
all the various sciences or disciplines. They formed a coherent
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systematic unity of mind. This held for all the Idealists. However, in
more substantive terms, Idealists also believed that the whole process
of formal education itself was intrinsically philosophic, insofar as it
was concerned with the act of thinking and thus the life of mind.
Furthermore, this philosophic educational process was seen to be
linked to the overall ethical and social development of the individual
person; more significantly it was seen as an essential prerequisite for
the development of genuine citizenship of a modern state. As human
beings progressed further through a systemically organized curriculum, they could develop and grow in both knowledge and character.
Education was seen to facilitate the absorption of deep organizing
ethical ideas, which enabled individuals not only to take more effective control of their own lives, but also to find common ground with
their fellow citizens. The assimilation of civilizing capacious ideas
meant that individuals could also be freed from the depressing effect
of circumstance for which they were not responsible.18 This whole
argument hearkens back to those we have already encountered in
earlier chapters, concerning the will and social purpose. For Haldane
a British Idealist intensely focused on education higher education
in particular, in major civic centres, was viewed as generating a reflective unity of ideas within key cities.19 Universities would not just be
centres of research and training, but also opinion-formers in local
communities, that is, bringing the grand formative, if often implicit,
ideas of human thought into everyday civic practice. As he insisted,
in an address to students, nothing is so expansive as the train of
thought suggested by an idea that is really great, in effect, it transforms the whole outlook. All significant higher level teaching should
be guiding individuals to this large outlook.20 This, he thought,
could also be facilitated through adult education inall civic centres.21
He described universities, in this context, as the brain and intelligence of the educational system, permeating ideas to all other educational institutions. More recently, Michael Oakeshott reflected upon
university education, espousing a view that has become anathema to
the contemporary predominance of the idea that universities are
training institutions preparing students for the workforce. A university education, in Oakeshotts view, is an intellectual endeavour, and
the subject matter is something of an irrelevance. What a university
education imparts is the ability to understand and converse in different languages of explanation. In his view, any subject matter may be
studied philosophically, historically or scientifically. The practical
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mode was an inappropriate idiom at the university level, but not

necessarily for other educational institutions. Education, then, is for
its own sake, released from considerations of government goals and
targets for training accountants, doctors, lawyers and engineers. A
university is not a vocationally oriented education. Instead, one becomes
adept at conversing in the different languages of explanation.22
The early British Idealist interest in education can be found in the
ideas and practice of T. H. Green. For example, in1864, Green was
appointed an assistant-commissioner in the Midlands to the Schools
Inquiry Commission chaired by Lord Taunton. His main responsibility, until 1866, was to inspect the endowed schools of Warwickshire
and Staffordshire and later Buckingham, Leicester and Northampton.
The final report of the commission, with Greens contribution, was
published in 1868. The Endowed Schools Act of 1869, however,
nowhere lived up to Greens vision for the reconstitution of society
through education. After his commission work, Green was elected as
a teachers representative on the governing body of King Edwards
School in Birmingham. Contrary to many classical Liberals, Green
and the majority of British Idealists believed intensely in making
education compulsory through the state. Idealists argued that this
compulsion did not entail any real encroachment on the liberties of
parents. On the contrary, to compel parents to educate their children
removed an obstacle to the effective growth of the capacity in the
next generation to exercise their rights and freedom beneficially.
Insofar as compulsion was sensitive to the particular ecclesiastical or
other preferences of the parents, there was no interference with the
moral duty of the parent. Green also believed robustly in extending
access to higher education to poorer students and working men.
With the support of Benjamin Jowett, Balliol Hall an annex to the
main Oxford College was provided for students with limited
finances. Green in fact presided over the Hall. Green was also a keen
supporter of the early University Extension Movement, which began
in the 1870s, and of the education of women.
In fact, it is worth noting that virtually all the early pre-1914 generation of British Idealists were eager to extend educational opportunities broadly, supporting the university extension movement,
ethical societies and later the workers educational movement. This
educational belief included a mix of both state- and voluntary-based
organizations. Haldane was probably the most successful British
Idealist in the domain of educational development.23 He pursued
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educational policy throughout his working life from the 1880s up to

the late 1920s and regarded education as the most important of all
reform efforts. His master plan for education in Britain was: first, to
establish a network of regional civic universities across Britain supported by a University Grants Committee (an idea that he initially
introduced); second, to develop primary and secondary education;
and, finally to facilitate the development of adult education structures. His most noteworthy work lay in the development of higher
education policy.24 His first foray into education policy was in the
Universities in Scotland Bill and the University of London Bill in
the 1890s. Haldane became deeply involved with Sidney Webb in the
negotiations over the University of London Act. This was, in effect,
to give the University both teaching and examining functions. He
was also closely engaged in the establishment of Birkbeck College
(University of London), guiding it through to university status. He
remained president of Birkbeck College until his death in1928. The
passing of the University of London Bill was followed by a period of
fruitful cooperative work with Sidney Webb, and others, in setting up
the London School of Economics and Political Science. It is unlikely
that it would have seen the light of day so soon without Haldanes
networking skills.25 He also became, at this time, preoccupied with
the German Technische Hochschule system, largely based upon his
visits to one particularly famous institution in Germany in
Charlottenburg. He regularly campaigned on the need for a London
Charlottenburg for South Kensington. Although it did not come to
fruition for a number of years, it eventually was established as
Imperial College of Science and Technology. Haldane was quite
directly involved in organizing the financial backing for its creation.
He was also directly and indirectly involved the setting up of the first
wave of civic universities in England and Wales, including, for example, the Universities of Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol,
Nottingham, Southampton and Sheffield.
Haldanes other passion was adult education. In combination with
Albert Mansbridge, R. H. Tawney and Harold Laski, he helped
establish the Workers Education Association (WEA) in 1921. He
became a staunch supporter and for many years lectured for the
Association. The WEA movement quickly extended to most of
the new civic university centres across Britain. Many of the original
themes behind this had already been aired in some of T. H. Greens
writings and in University Settlements, such as Toynbee Hall, and
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the early Ethical Society movement (both of which Haldane had lectured to).26. In summary, as one scholarly study has put it, Haldanes
Idealist achievement lay in the foundations of our [the British] whole
system of education.27
Another example of this practical direction of Idealist philosophy
was Henry Jones, who was one of the Commissioners on University
Education in Wales prior to the First World War. He was instrumental
in setting up the so-called penny rate scheme for Wales, that is, helping (in aim) to abolish university fees, such as to allow ordinary Welsh
working men and women to enter into university education. It was a
scheme subsequently adopted by many counties in England. University
education, however, had to be integrated into a comprehensive policy,
making education at all levels, including elementary, free and available
to all children. He was a passionate supporter of the federal principle
in the University of Wales, and when in Australia campaigned for
the establishment of a new University in Brisbane, as well as the more
widespread study of sociology to help us understand better the social
problem and how education could contribute to solutions. He was in
harmony with the desire among many Australian Idealists, such as
William Mitchell in Adelaide, and Francis Anderson in Sydney, in
expanding the educational system. Like T. H. Green, they all believed
in the capacity of education as the great social leveller, delivering
equality of opportunities, if not of outcomes. He also, like others such
as his mentor Caird, was involved extensively on extra-mural teaching
development and the WEA. This pattern, as indicated, can be seen in
many of the pre-1914 generation of Idealists.
Education was not something isolated from the rest of social policy, or civic duties. The purpose of society and of education was to
develop capacities and provide the opportunities for flourishing and
self-realization. In this respect, education permeated all aspects of
society, and no feature of it could absolve itself of the responsibility
to remove the obstacles to the cultivation of character. Every workshop and factory should be a school of virtue.28
Poverty: Moral and Mechanical Reform

It was acknowledged by the British Idealists that education was not

a panacea for developing citizenship in toto. As indicated earlier on
the question of class inequality of resources was an unequivocal
social problem facing Idealism. One particular concern that arose in
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this context was poverty; poverty was seen as an obstacle to good

citizenship.
The situation was complex. Idealists, beginning with Green,
affirmed to a greater or lesser degree aspects of the Liberal free economy. Green, following the lead of his hero John Bright one of the
leading figures in the Manchester School of Economics defended
free trade, the market economy, the development of industry and the
unavoidability of some unequal resources.29 Nonetheless, as Green
was aware, any close study of the conditions of the urban working
classes, as revealed in the various royal commissions and government
blue books of the late nineteenth century, painted a disturbing picture. Conditions of extreme poverty and social deprivation prevailed
in many urban centres. Green commented that the labour market is
constantly thronged with men who are too badly reared and fed to be
efficient labourers; who for this reason, and from the competition for
employment with each other, have to sell their labour very cheap.30
Greens own response to the issue of poverty was peculiar. In effect,
although committed to facets of state intervention, he also blamed
aspects of poverty not so much on lack of resources, as on deficiencies in character. This was combined with the idea of the original
conquest and ownership of large tracts of land by aristocratic families (consequently preventing the diffusion of land ownership), which
in turn generated a class of itinerant landless labourers, susceptible to
every flux in the free market economy and thus to periodic poverty.
Despite this partial affirmation of the role of the classical Liberal
economy, the British Idealist response to the issue of poverty was
nonetheless divided. We might see this division in terms of moral
and mechanical reformism, although the two sides were not wholly
exclusive. One argument embodied Greens suggestion that an aspect
of poverty refers to character failure. Thus, poverty indicates, to an
extent, moral failings in the individual. Certain Idealists had their
own specific response to this. The other argument was that poverty
could only be addressed systematically through more mechanistic
actions by the state. The issue then became a matter of resource allocation and social justice.
The terminology mechanical is not wholly precise. The core of
the British Idealist argument (which unified all sides of Idealism)
concerned a delicate balance between individual and collective
responsibility. J. H. Muirhead remarked that both he and his fellow
Idealists all followed Green in believing that the ultimate source of
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social betterment lay in the individuals power of responding to

improved social conditions by utilising them for social self-improvement as a member of a civilized society.31 The state was there to
remove hindrances. The two main hindrances for Muirhead were
lack of educational opportunities and poor conditions at home and
work. As long as the actions by the state or municipality underpinned
individual independence of mind, then they were permissible. Selfresponsibility needed to be given a firmer social basis. However, the
actual items of interference tended to shift among various Idealists
and indeed among New Liberals.
The divisions among Idealists lay largely in the stress placed on the
dimensions of individual or collective responsibility. In one reading
of Greens arguments, state action on sanitation, housing, industrial
conditions and education, was fully warranted, whereas taxation of
unearned increments from profits was not. This argument contained
various possibilities. D. G. Ritchie remarked, on the development of
Liberalism, that the work of the state had grown from the merely
negative work of removing mischievous State-action to the positive
task of employing the power of the government, which is now, more
or less, the real representative of the general will on behalf of the
well being of the community.32 All law and enforcement by the state
was acceptable for Ritchie (and this was his reading of T.H. Greens
argument), insofar as it promoted freedom and the common good.
As Henry Jones argued succinctly the liberty to do wrong is not a
right, but the perversion of a right and its negation.33 When the state
systematically addressed the social conditions of poverty, it was
addressing a wrong. State action, as such, did grow markedly in the
period from 1890 to 1914, but for most Idealists and indeed New
Liberals, this had not diminished liberty, but rather enhanced it. Law
was compatible in many contexts with liberty.
This more mechanistic and circumstance-related argument set
the scene for both the New Liberalism and the later social democratic views of the Labour Party in the twentieth century. It is important to emphasize that this more mechanistic approach to poverty
did not entail a rejection of the market. For both Idealists and
New Liberals, markets were to be encouraged within their place.
Markets were not regarded as appropriate for certain aspects of policy. As we move up to 1914, and then the 1920s and beyond, increasingly the argument concerning the circumstances of poverty moved
towards the state addressing directly employment conditions, health
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Idealism as a Practical Creed

care, education, social insurance and housing. The market was

increasingly regarded, in these domains, as a crude and unpredictable device. Such areas needed sensitive state regulation. This might
now be understood as an argument for a more mixed conception of
the economy involving indicative planning. The implication of the
latter ideas was that the state had a more active role to play in providing the conditions for the best life of its citizens. The state was not
merely a ring-holder, but an active agent. In the case of New Liberal
economists, such as J. M. Keynes, the emphasis shifted to more technical economic arguments concerning the state supervision of the
market system in order to increase its effectiveness in reducing
unemployment and poverty. This became a major theme of New
Liberalism in the 1920s, culminating in1928 with Britains Industrial
Future. Known as the Yellow Book, from the colour of its cover, this
was an extensive programme of Liberal state-led action involving
public works, diffusion of ownership, extension of progressive taxation
and encouragement to saving.
In summary, the above arguments were suggesting a form of managed Liberal capitalism. Keynes himself did not seem unduly concerned with the problem of poverty, except so far as the unemployed
were an underused economic resource. Comprehensive social policies on poverty were developed by the student of the Idealist Edward
Caird, W. H. Beveridge, in his 1942 Report on Social Insurance and
Allied Services, which laid the foundations for the social security system in Britain. It is clear that many of the major policy changes in
economic and social spheres in Britain during the twentieth century,
until the late 1970s, were developed by New Liberals of various
stripes. For one recent commentator, Liberal reformers such as
Beveridge and Keynes, had a crucial place in defining the terms of
the civic bargain that prevailed [in Britain] from 1945 to the 1970s.34
This bargain entailed guaranteed rights of protection against illness,
old age and unemployment, as well as opportunities in education.
Social rights, financed out of general taxation, provided for social
citizenship.35 This social policy development was not necessarily at
odds with classical Liberalism. However, there was unquestionably a
gradual extension and mutation of ideas over the nineteenth and
twentieth century, which gave rise to increasing state involvement in
economic and social policy.
The other dimension of the Idealist argument on poverty embodied Greens stress on character and personal moral responsibility.
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The most able representative of this argument among the British

Idealists was Bernard Bosanquet. The argument is largely embodied
in his reflections on the work of the Charity Organisation Society.36
The core of the argument derived from a theory of character.
Bosanquet argued, in effect, for a systematic extension of Greens
arguments. Character was dependent on the idea of self-maintenance.
Physical and mental self-maintenance were intimately bound up with
the nature of willing. The will consists in those ideas which are guiding attention and action.37 Certain ideas had a logical and systematic power to dominate and focus the mind and actions of individuals
and societies. The basic logic of his case was that all the circumstances and material conditions of an individuals life were frequently
created and structured by actions. Yet, all the actions of an individual were in turn structured by will and dominant ideas. The corollary
was that the circumstance and material conditions of an individuals
life reflect the structure of ideas and will. One key inference from this
is that in order to change material conditions and circumstances, it
was necessary to restructure and refocus the will and ideas of
individuals.
One important consequence followed. For Bosanquet, poverty
could be, in certain circumstances, as much a failure of will and ideas,
as of material conditions. Human beings were not simply at the
mercy of social or economic conditions. Thus, there might be work
available, the agent well able to do it, and yet tried to avoid it and
seek subsidies from the state or charity. In these circumstances, poverty is not a result of inevitable conditions beyond the control of
individuals. If the state simply steps in here with material relief, it
will have undermined the agent and reinforced weak self-interested
ideas. Bosanquet therefore concluded that too much reliance upon
mechanical relief via the state undermines self-maintenance and
individual will. It is worth noting that the same core Idealist argument (relating to state intervention) still applied. Intervention and
non-intervention had to be based on the common good. Intervention
had to enhance the individuals capacity for liberty. Whereas for
Ritchie or Jones this could entail much broader state intervention,
for Bosanquet it was often a reason to limit state action.
Poverty was to some extent seen by Bosanquet as a failure of character, which was, in turn, a failure of self-maintenance. It was also a
breakdown of will. This failure was moral since it reflected the individuals inability to look to the common good. Many become destitute
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due to trade cycles and changes in technique of production. This, for

Bosanquet, was a non-voluntary poverty, which had to be addressed,
preferably via systematic charity and state action. At points he happily
admits therefore that the state or municipality could have a vital role.
However, this still did not address the other dimension of poverty,
which was essentially a failure of will and character. This required
what Bosanquet called social therapeutics.
British Idealists, rather like the German Idealists of the nineteenth
century, tended to divide on certain key issues. Green was, in some
ways, similar to Hegel in generating diverse responses to specific
issues. In one sphere, figures like D. G. Ritchie and Henry Jones
placed more emphasis on the material circumstances of poverty,
which should be addressed by the collective responsibility of the
state. On the other hand those, such as Bosanquet although unquestionably not anti-state nonetheless tended to stress the role of character, will and individual responsibility in poverty arguments. This
latter claim by Bosanquet, was treated with scorn by most Fabian
socialists prior to 1914. The Webbs saw duties, vis--vis character
arguments, as antiquated residues of Victoriana. This was particularly the case in the debate between the Majority and Minority Royal
Commission reports on the Poor Law in1909.38 It also figured prominently in debates on unemployment, health insurance and old age
pensions up to 1914.
Social Work

Bosanquet thought that poverty could, in certain specific dimensions, be accounted for by showing its relation to the manner in
which the individual structures his or her life (and the ideas that
dominated actions and circumstances). This analysis also indicated
how these circumstances could be changed. Bosanquet called this
whole process social therapeutics. The gist of social therapeutics
was that if one could identify what actually motivated individuals,
namely, what ideas dominated their willing, then it followed one had
the possibility of intervening constructively and potentially improving a persons life. That is to say, if one could enable individuals to
adopt different but ethically significant ideas, then they, in turn,
would begin to restructure actions and material circumstances.
One further issue for all Idealists is that no individual functions
simply on his or her own. Individualism means social individualism,
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even in Bosanquet. The individual grows and works in families and

neighbourhoods. Only by investigating the individuals ideas and will
in terms of complex social circumstances, could one understand
how he or she became poor and possibly reconfigure his or her life.
This whole argument formed the basis for Bosanquets intense interest in the practice of social work. However, this was not just
individual social work, it was family- and neighbourhood-oriented
social casework. The more standard terminology was family casework. Bosanquets adoptive organization the Charity Organisation
Society pioneered this type of social work during the late nineteenth century. For Bosanquet, family-and neighbourhood-based
social work corresponded directly with his perception of the logic of
Idealism. For Bosanquet, the social worker and the philosopher were
both inspired and spurred by the passion and logic of reality.
One important consequence of this notion of family casework was
that Bosanquet argued for the need for detailed and systematic training in social work. He also saw the new discipline of sociology as
intimately linked with this training. Individuals had to be taught a
strong sense of the way social collectivities work. Bosanquets own
involvement in social work training began in the late 1880s, in the
context of a number of voluntary London-based groups. With
Bosanquets enthusiastic support, the Charity Organisation Society
set up its own School of Sociology in1896, premised on a systematic training programme for social workers.39 The training programme eventually assumed the title School of Sociology and Social
Economics in1903. Its key task was seen as the provision of proper
training in social work something dear to the heart of Charity
Organisation leaders. Bosanquet was the leading intellectual light in
the new school, although E. J. Urwick, a former sub-warden at
Toynbee Hall and director of the School of Ethics and Social
Philosophy (which Bosanquet was also involved in), was the main
organizer. The teaching of the school focused on a curriculum of
sociology, social theory and practical instruction in charitable and
poor law administration, all seen as a basis for the proper training of
social work. The school became independent of the Charity
Organisation Society within a year, although it carried on unofficially propounding the Charity Organisation Society position on
social work training and sociology into the early twentieth century.
Bosanquet chaired its executive from 1908 to 1912. However, the
school was closed in1912, due to financial difficulties. It was then
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rapidly amalgamated into the Webbs London School of Economics,

much to Bosanquets annoyance. Bosanquet retained a keen interest
in developments in social work up to and beyond the First World
War. The issue of social work itself and social work training was one
important practical legacy of this dimension of Idealism.
Temperance

There is another important reading of the British Idealists on the

practicalities of state intervention, which tries to lessen their significance. This particularly applies to the role of T. H. Green in initiating a broader role for the state. The key critical point is neatly stated
by Peter Clarke when he comments it is certainly a mistake to hail
(Green) as a collectivist or architect of the welfare state. In his lecture on Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract (1881), Green
did not go beyond an advocacy of moderate reform of the land laws
and with much more fervour the legislative restriction of the sale
of drink.40
Unquestionably, Green was closely associated with the temperance
movement, joining the United Kingdom Alliance in1872 and publicly committing himself to teetotalism. He was made a Vice-President
in1878. He was also President of the Oxford Temperance Alliance
and Treasurer to the Oxford Diocesan Branch of the Church of
England Temperance Society; further he was President of the
Oxfordshire Band of Hope and Temperance Union from 1876. His
personal interest in this issue included setting up a coffee tavern for
working people in St. Clements, Oxford in1875. Apart from the fact
that his brother suffered from severe alcoholism, it is also important
to note that, even after the 1874 Licensing Act, child and adult
drunkenness was rife in industrial and agricultural areas across
Britain. Green favoured what was called the local option policy,
which entailed local control on the sale of alcohol. In1873, he came
into direct and open dispute with a leading Liberal, Sir William
Harcourt, over the latters opposition to tighter regulation on the
sale of alcohol. Greens views have been parodied here as not only
out of step with the then Liberal Party, but also showing (vis--vis
Clarkes comment) the narrowness of his approach on legislation.
Greens teetotalism did not represent his earlier views; in fact he
drank socially in his early career. However, he felt that it was better
to provide an example rather than to preach. It is very important to
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grasp the main thrust of Greens philosophical position justifying his

temperance. He saw intemperance as part of a connected pattern of
inequality and poverty, characteristic of a classical Liberal policy of
laissez-faire. In addition, the justification for any state action was
always premised, for Green, on the common good. His views on temperance were consistent with his more general political philosophy.
Alcohol was potentially (for many people) yet another impediment
to their basic development as citizens. This is as true today in the
large urban centres of contemporary Britain. Citizens should be able
to strive towards excellence in their characters. The state had a duty,
in this context, to promote the common good via a removal of obstacles to such development. The key question was always: Does an
intervention by the state actually contribute to the common good?
For Green, every citizen should have the possibility of developing
themselves and the state had a duty to provide the conditions to
enable this. This did not mean that one could force anyone to be
moral, but rather that one provided conditions for the possibility of
such character development. In some cases one could restrict harmful influences on such a process. Basically if someone acts morally
and responsibly, then legal intervention on, say, closing times or
restriction on the sale of alcohol would have no effect whatsoever.
Genuine liberty was not affected by law. To someone who drank
moderately, restriction would only be a minor inconvenience and no
actual constraint on a genuine liberty. Yet, to those who made and
sold alcohol, Green felt, in essence, that no one had a right to diminish the rights and capabilities of others. Compulsion, in this latter
case, was quite legitimate, since the agents incapacitated themselves
by undermining the common good. As a matter of basic fact, for
Green, too many premises selling alcohol, with longer opening hours,
was in itself no contribution (in any way) to the common good and
the development and liberty of citizens. It was an unnecessary and
unjustifiable temptation for those who were developing as citizens.
Individual responsibility needed to be underpinned by collective
responsibility.
In summary, for Green, the general principle of the common good
and liberty was the justification for state compulsion. This was not an
abstracted sense of the common good and liberty; rather, for Green
(as for all the British Idealist), the idea of the common good was
derived from the existing practices of his own society. This argument
embodies Greens (and other British Idealists) unique blending of
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Kants universalism and Hegelian Sittlichkeit. Consequently, for

Idealism, to force children to school, to force employers to shield their
workers from dangerous machinery or to force the restriction of
alcohol, were part of the same basic pattern. State involvement in the
regulation of drink, housing conditions, land ownership, employment
conditions and education was all justifiable on the grounds of the
common good. State interference should at all times be directed to
removing barriers and providing the conditions for the realization of
citizens powers.
Property

The Idealists had a distinctive view of property, which was a practical

consequence of their social theory. Private property was an exclusive
idea within classical Liberalism. Communal property was seen to
negate such a private value. Physical property simply could not be
shared. It necessarily resists commonality. For many critics, this argument remained the stumbling block to all forms of socialism and state
action. Most classical Liberals saw public ownership and nationalization in this negative light. However, the idea of a right to property in
the Hegelian tradition was linked to a more general theory of rights
premised on social recognition. The simple possession of an object
was in itself not a right; such possession required recognition within
a community, in order for it to become a property right.
There are strong parallels on the issue of property with earlier arguments in this chapter concerning, for example, poverty and state action.
Thus, one near contemporary of T.H. Green remarked that his:
strong sense of the necessity of property for building up of character led him, however, not so much to exalt the sacredness of
property in the hands of the large owner, as to insist on the necessity of such legislation as would tend to the diffusion of property
as widely as possible among the masses. A more socialist version
of the Hegelian teaching is to be found in the writings of the late
Professor Ritchie, while for a more individualistic interpretation
the most conspicuous representative is Professor Bosanquet.41
Green figures here, once again, as a seminal thinker among the
British Idealists; his theory of property being subsequently interpreted in different ways. As indicated, he had clear doubts over the
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taxation of the unearned increment, bound up largely with the difficulty of determining the exact boundary of the earned. Green
appeared to place more faith in the idea of a society of small-scale
proprietors and capitalists. Yet, nonetheless, the rationale of property itself in Greens Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation
was fluid enough to be channelled in different directions. The basic
argument was that each citizen needed property to allow him or her
to realize his or her will. Property accumulation was justifiable as
long as it did not interfere with the exercise of a like power by others.
However, if some accumulated and deprived or restricted others,
then it followed that the common good was being undermined. Given
that the states purpose was to hinder hindrances and enable citizens
to realize themselves, then, if a citizens ability to acquire property
was hindered by large capital accumulations, then there was a clear
necessity for state intervention in property rights, via for example,
direct taxation. As Greens student Arnold Toynbee remarked: I do
not hesitate to say that this question of the distribution of wealth is
the great question of our time.42 Ownership of property and wealth
per se could never be seen in Idealism as simply an individual achievement. It was an achievement in common with others. Property was
relative to the community and thus the common good.
Henry Jones arguments followed the same basic logic. Property
was more than mere possession. It was a right held in the context of
the common good. Possession per se did not entail owning. Property
required more than just a private will to possess it. Something
becomes mine, but more precisely, mine by right and right implies
recognition. A right is something, in fact, that ought to be recognized; other wills in the organized setting of a society then recognize
and respect my appropriation. Thus, my exclusive private property is
not something gained or acquired through my privacy, rather my
possession and private use are granted by society (or more precisely
the organized will of society the state). Private property is a reality,
which must be respected, but we must realize its point of origin and
justification.43 For Jones as for other Idealists both socialists and
individualist Liberals, in their different ways, embody an aspect of
the truth of property. Private property is an ethical fact, but its
essence is that it is the result of an act whereby society endows its
individual members with rights against itself.44 On the other hand,
individualists are right to insist that private property is unconditionally necessary to the individual and state. Unless its privacy and
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necessity are recognized by the state, it could not function as a liberating force.
Jones was fairly radical on this issue and believed the public ownership was quite clearly justifiable. He contended, for example, that
the Post Office managed by the State enlarges the capacities of the
individual. I can use its utilities You cant send a private messenger
from John of Groats to Lands End for 1d The State does not dispossess the individual of his property. It takes his money and returns
it in increased utilities.45 Well-financed state education, pensions for
the aged, school meals, medical inspection in schools and the large
viable public utilities, are, for Jones, examples of how the state can
enhance the freedom of the individual. It is this form of democratic
liberal socialism that carries letters, provides health care, educates
children, and so forth. This does not undermine property rights;
rather it is defending them by defining them a little more justly,
which is their surest defence.46 Individuals are not undermined by
public ownership, per se, but rather each becomes a mutual shareholder in the vast enterprise for the common good.
The question of the unearned increment, despite Greens unusual
defence of it, did ultimately succumb to the logic of the Idealist argument. The distinction between the earned and unearned increment,
or private and social value in wealth, could be encapsulated in a
phrase used at the time of inception of the New Liberalism, that is,
property for use and property for power.47 Both L.T. Hobhouse
and Charles Gore, like Green, saw property as a right of control over
things, which was recognized by society. It was intrinsically connected to both the rational purpose of society and individual freedom. It was thus essential to the development of citizens. The success
of a state was not measured, as such, by the amount of its material
wealth, but rather by the degree to which it gave all citizens the
chance of making the best of themselves. Property for use was a
prerequisite to self-realization. Above this limit it became property
for power. Without some property no citizen could realize himself or
herself. It was thus coincidental with the common good. The state, as
a repository of the common good, had a collective responsibility to
ensure property for use for all its citizens and prevent or disable
property for power. In the New Liberalism, the distinction between
the earned and unearned increment (or private and social value)
became a basis for the transformed understanding of taxation. There
was thus a specific distinction drawn between property as a reward
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for ability, as a factor in the maintenance of industry, and property

as wasteful exploitation of the market, currency speculation and the
like.48 As Hobhouse remarked, in1911, the true function of taxation
was to secure to society the element in wealth that is of social
origin.49 This latter claim represented an important way in which the
Idealist argument on property had evolved.
Practical liberty

It is worth briefly emphasizing, once again, the point that British

Idealism was noteworthy for translating philosophical arguments
into practical prescriptions. The philosophical arguments were essential, but the practical impact of the arguments was also fundamental. This practical feature of philosophical argument can be seen in
most spheres of Idealist debate. Thus, even discussion of, for example, the concept of liberty focused on its practical dimension.
There is a distinctly caricatured view of the Idealist argument on
liberty, particularly in relation to the work of T. H. Green. The concept of positive liberty, specifically in the context of Isaiah Berlins
famous essay, Two Concepts of Liberty, has often been used as a
stick with which to beat the British Idealists. Positive liberty becomes
the anteroom to a form of state oppression. What is usually not
appreciated at all is the very practical and ordinary context in which
Green raised the argument about positive liberty at least in terms
of one of its most succinct definitions. Thus, Green argued that freedom cannot be understood as simply the absence of restraint or
compulsion, vis--vis contractual relations. He contended that we
do not mean merely freedom to do as we like. We do not mean freedom that can be enjoyed by one manat the cost of a loss of freedom to others. Freedom, he continued, is a positive power of doing
or enjoying, and that, too, something that we do or enjoy in common
with others.50 Freedom is not just individual whim or desire it is
something more positive. The essay in which this famous definition
appears was entitled Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract
[1881]. It was written, not for a discerning philosophical audience,
but rather for ordinary members of the Liberal Party.
As indicated, earlier in this chapter, the essay was essentially trying
to persuade Liberals not to be overly worried by developments of
Liberal legislation, which appeared to be intervening more in contract relations between, for example, employers and employees. It
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Idealism as a Practical Creed

was both an explanation and justification for these legislative changes

changes in conditions of employment contracts, which we would
now regard as perfectly normal and right, but, at that time, worried
many classically minded Liberals. In a nutshell, Greens positive liberty in a purely practical sense corresponds exactly with our most
ordinary current intuitions about law and contract. This simple fact
usually evades its critics.
The core idea of Greens lecture was that law and restraint were
not necessarily incompatible with liberty, an argument that has now
become a republican commonplace. More controversially, Green
pointed out that free contracts must be shown to contribute to the
common good. Jones deployed a similar argument. Freedom, he
argued, had often been seen as a negative principle of opposition to
public authority. However, in reality, there was no opposition, the
State itself is free, and the means of the freedom of its members.51
Further, for Green, the progress of society is measured by the advance
of such positive freedom, which he believed was perfectly in accord
with the development of Liberalism as a political movement. In
addition, such freedom, because of its link to the common good,
could not be premised on others unfreedom. Freedom coincided
with the common good. In this way the freedom of the individual
was reconciled with society. Freedom was understood as the maximum power of all members of society to make the best of themselves. Thus, Green contended that it was justifiable, on grounds of
freedom, to interfere in the sale and consumption of alcohol, housing, public health provisions, employment, land ownership and education. Such action, although coercive, nonetheless removed
unjustifiable obstacles and so provided conditions for the genuine
exercise of freedom. Law could thus contribute to the lives of the
overworked, underfed, ill-housed and undereducated.
These arguments on positive freedom are echoed in many New
Liberal writings through the 1890s and early 1900s. As the New
Liberal Herbert Samuel remarked: There could be no true liberty if
a man was confined and oppressed by poverty, by excessive hours of
labour, by insecurity of livelihoodTo be truly free he must be liberated from these things also. In many cases, it was only the power of
law that could effect this. More law might often mean more liberty.52
Similar points are put by New Liberal figures such as Hobhouse,
Winston Churchill and H. H. Asquith.53 It is this understanding of
social freedom that underpins the policy work of the New Liberal
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administrations of 19061914 and their welfare legislation. It is also

this line of thought that has carried on into many aspects of the
social democratic tradition to the present day.
Haldane, for example, followed the same line of thought as Samuel.
He argued that Liberalism had strived to develop aspects of freedom
through franchise and other such reforms during the nineteenth century. However, he contended that the New Liberalism had refocused
freedom on the social question. In explaining this development,
Haldane moves immediately to quote what he referred to as a great
master of political concepts who seems to me to have expressed the
necessities of our generation in the matter of social progress better
than anyone else. The individual concerned was T. H. Green (from
the above cited lecture). Greens language for Haldane may be taken
as defining generally the aim and tendency of a party which looks as
much to distribution as to production, and which claims that only so
can the liberalism of today be true to its mission. Greens Idealist
language can thus be taken as the main basis of the Liberalism of the
future. This was a language that was attuned to social freedom, the
broader use of the state, a more interventionist role in the economy,
and so forth. He also thought it was a language that was very close to
that of many Fabian socialists. Thus, he commented, The New
Liberals I take to be those who esteem a progressive policy in social
matters more highly than anything else at present in Liberalism.54
In trying to indicate a broad progressive alliance, focused on
enhancing social freedom through a more imaginative use of the
state and local government, Haldane gave his whole discussion a
speculative gloss. This New Liberalism was really, as he put it, an
affair of spirit the form of its activity is moulded by the requirements of successive generations. He suggests that the serious question that actually identifies New Liberalism is not so much the
specific social programme or policies, as a proper frame of mind.
This frame of mind is identified by certain core colligating ideas.
The New Liberalism, in other words, coheres, makes sense, or, is
internally organized by certain historically developed ethical ideas.
In this case, it is the concept of social freedom. Freedom (as suggested in Greens lecture) is a developing idea, which represented a
fight for emancipation from the condition which denies fair play to
the collective energy for the good of society as a whole.55 In concluding, Haldane suggests that this idea underpinned the whole thrust of
the New Liberal policy.
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Conclusion

This chapter has focused on the theme of Idealism as a practical

creed. The philosophical arguments of Idealism were obviously crucial to their writings, as we have shown. However, one of the important facets of Idealist political philosophy was its attempt to address
the political and social world in a very practical and creative manner.
The ideas developed on Liberalism, socialism, education, poverty,
social work practice and citizenship, and the like, were all intended to
engage subtly with the realities of late Victorian and Edwardian
Britain. This was a more complex matter than critics suggest because
not all Idealist argument bridged or even intended to bridge theory
and practice. Although some critics have inveighed against, for example, Hegel for the practical implications of his political philosophy,
Hegel himself was clear, in his own mind, that philosophy had little
contribution to make to practical life. In The Philosophy of Right, for
example, he maintained that philosophy always arrives too late to
offer any practical advice.56 However, for many British Idealists, with
a few key exceptions notably Bradley, McTaggart and Oakeshott
philosophy was integrally related to practical life and should be
directed to improve the condition of society. Henry Jones, for example, thought that the most important work of the philosopher was
always to improve the condition of ordinary working people.57
This bridging of theory and practice was particularly evident in the
work and life of T.H. Green. Green acted as an initial powerful stimulus on the whole Idealist school in the domain of moral, social and
political philosophy. He was often seen therefore to have had a significant effect on generations of students, including many academics,
churchmen, politicians and public servants, for example, men such as
H. H. Asquith, Edward Grey, Alfred Milner, Arthur Acland, A. C.
Bradley, Arnold Toynbee, Bernard Bosanquet, R. L. Nettleship, J. H.
Muirhead, Charles Gore and Henry Scott Holland. It was in this context that Collingwood noted in his Autobiography that Greens major
effect was to send out into public life a stream of ex-pupils who carried with them the conviction that philosophy was an important
thing, and their vocation was to put it into practice Through this
effect on the minds of its pupils, the philosophy of Greens school
might be found, from 1880 to about 1910, penetrating and fertilizing
every part of the national life.58 It is difficult to think of any later
twentieth-century British philosophical movement that has had any
comparable positive effect on practical affairs as British Idealism.
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Chapter six

Nationality, Imperialism and

International Relations

Introduction

The events that surround the period during which British Idealism
was in the ascendancy encompass what Hobsbawm has called the
Age of Imperialism, running in effect from the Crimean War to
Second World War.1 Many of these key events constituted the substantive international political matters to which British Idealists contributed in a sustained manner. It is, as such, surprising that very
little scholarly attention has been devoted to the theories of international relations of the British Idealists in the secondary literature. In
general, the British Idealists have been wrongly characterized as
Realists in international relations with a purported exalted view of
the state; exponents of bounded communities; and finally, understanding notions of international law and morality as mere metaphors. They have also been criticized for being pro-Imperialist and
subscribers to a German Philosophy that was responsible for the
militarism precipitating the First and Second World Wars.2 It will be
impossible to cover the full range of arguments used by the British
Idealists to respond to and resolve the above issues. This chapter will
focus on some key interventions surrounding Nationality and
Patriotism: The second Boer War (18991902), Imperialism and the
extension of the moral community.
War and Idealism

It is true that Hegel sometimes provided ammunition for critical assessments, in suggesting, for example, that the state was the march of God
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on earth, and in his idea that the development of consciousness lay in

the identification of ones real will with the collective entity higher than
individual wills. There appeared to be no greater ethical sacrifice than
laying ones life down for the state. Hegel also saw a role for war in
regenerating an ethically moribund state. In a purple passage, he suggested that war could blow away the stagnant air from the surface of a
still pond. Risking ones life for the state in war serves the purpose of
confronting the person with the higher unity to which he belongs and
upon which his own family, civil and economic life depends. War also
serves to retard internal unrest and reinforces loyalty to the institutions
of the state.3 Hegel believed that the state logically entails the existence
of other states, among which there is a struggle for recognition. The
rights of states are not embedded in a universal will, but are manifest
and actualized in the particular will of each. He argues that its own
welfare is the supreme law for a state in its relations with others.4 War,
then, is necessary for external security and the internal health of the
nation. Its conduct may be regulated but not eradicated.
However, the British Idealists, in general, departed from Hegel in
believing that conflict and warfare were not natural to mankind, and
the key to the resolution of conflict was the Kantian vision of democratic republican states. The inevitability of conflict, in Greens view,
is a mistake. Occasions for conflict disappear when the states perfectly achieve their objective of providing the conditions for the selfrealization of the capacities of all individuals.5 The British Idealists,
as such, followed Green rather than Hegel in their views on war. For
Green, wars are always wrong irrespective of the ends pursued.
Blame may always be attributed to the conditions that prevented the
desired end being attained by other means. Those who can genuinely
plead that they resorted to war as the only available instrument to
maintain the conditions for the moral progress of humanity may be
absolved of complicity in what nevertheless remains a wrong.
Nevertheless, few wars could claim to be fought for such high moral
motives. Dynastic ambition, superseded by national conceit, had
been the major cause of war over the previous four centuries.6 Peter
Nicholson has demonstrated, contrary to prevailing views, that
Bosanquet is faithful to Green understanding of war.7 Yet, Bosanquet
argues that instead of denouncing it, we must try to understand war
better as part of the moral life that is liable to err.8 We are all complicit in what he terms the crowning stupidity of war, but like all
evils we must do our best to remove it.9
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Ritchie is probably closer to Hegel than any of the other British

Idealists in his attitude to war. He maintains that there are often
irreconcilable opposites in the ideals of nations opposed to each
other. War thus comprises a rough form of dialectic by which right
is determined. The judgement of whether a war is right or wrong
cannot be made in isolation. Our judgement is contingent on the
general progress of mankind towards constitutionalism and social
welfare. Reactionary rulers of nations who resist such progress and
acknowledge no argument but the point of a sword deserve to be
swept aside. Ritchie contended that the Turks, for example,
responded much more positively to a display of force than to any
argument based on principles.10 This, in fact, is no more than what
L. T. Hobhouse, a critic of the Idealist metaphysical state, was saying at the same time. It is not a question of the use of force as such,
but of the occasions on which it is permissible. For Hobhouse, as for
Ritchie, force is legitimate against such reactionary tendencies as
Turkish barbarity.11
All this is mitigated, however, by the fact that Hegel talked not of
any particular state, but on the idea of the state whose purpose was
not only the security of its citizens, but also their spiritual development, that is, the promotion of philosophy, the arts and sciences.
Furthermore, for him, as for Edmund Burke, the emergence of conventions and customs, as a common European heritage, or common
law of Europe, made war less of a war in the European context.
While law requires the state to create and sustain it, in the international context the so-called international law did nevertheless impose
prudential constraints.12
Critics of the international relations theory of the British Idealists
have generally failed to appreciate the fundamentals of the philosophy. Philosophy somehow has to give a rational account of what is,
and war and international relations were certainly evident in the consciousness of the times in which they lived. As Caird suggests: Men
have come to see the necessity of realising the nature of the universe
in which they live, and of dealing with the facts as they are, and not
as they would like them to be.13 It is, therefore, important to distinguish between the explanations they gave for why wars occurred, and
why international relations were as they were, and their arguments
and beliefs for how these relations may become in the future. Green,
along with all of the other British Idealists, denies the inevitability of
conflict between states. Bosanquet, for example, maintains that the
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normal relations of states is co-operative.14 The cause of war, they

suggest, is not the state as such, but states insofar as they fail to fulfil
their purpose. As Muirhead suggests: War is a feature of states not
as such but in so far as they fail to be states.15 The true purpose of
the state is undermined by sinister and special interests, which promote and protect privileged classes and inhibit the development of
civic equality, preventing the common exercise of civil rights. Privilege
is maintained by the class that propagates the belief that the states
interest is furthered by the pursuit of an external policy and not by
internal reform.16 The British Idealists generally believe that war is
the result of insufficient socialization.
To attain the sort of ideal relations that pertain within the state,
and the moral community upon which they depend, in their interactions with other states would require the extension of the moral
community beyond the borders of the state. We see in the writings of
the British Idealists an emphasis upon the Nation as the bearer of
the ideals, the hopes, morality and community of a people whose
ethical lives have been formed in their mutual relations. The Idealists
differ in the extent to which they acknowledge the actual achievement of a wider international community. None denied the desirability, nor the possibility of such a wider moral community
developing, and indeed saw the Empire and the League of Nations
as the vehicles through which further progress could be made. The
crucial issue in question was how international society could be
extended? By what mechanisms could narrow national self-interest
be transcended to extend our moral community?
In the view of the Idealists, and indeed of many of their critics, the
starting point had to be actual moral communities, that is nations or
states, out of which broader principles of humanity arise. 17 On the
issue of Imperialism, different Idealists supported it with differing
degrees of enthusiasm, but none endorsed the sort of social
Imperialism that Cecile Rhodes advocated, and which relied upon
the exploitation of colonized people to raise and ameliorate the living standards of the working classes at home, largely in order to
stave-off social unrest. The Idealists in general condemned the brutality of Imperialism, but it was a fact of history, and could be mitigated by the active promotion of the ideals of the higher civilizations
in assisting the lower to achieve self-government and advanced social
relations. It has gone little noticed that even their most severe critics
L. T. Hobhouse and J. A. Hobson agreed with many of the British
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Idealists on the issue of a right kind of Imperialism, one which is not

exploitative, but which prepares countries for development and
emancipation from enslavement to nature.
Nationalism, Patriotism and Idealism

Both Nationalism and Patriotism had a somewhat unresolved status

in British Idealist thought. First, although there was some acknowledgement that the two ideas were, to a degree distinct, nonetheless
there was little attempt by the Idealists systematically to differentiate
them. There was also little attempt to try to pin down a precise definition of either of the terms. Hetherington and Muirhead did suggest that nationality was something that could be dependent on a
wide range of divergent issues, such as race, on language, on tradition, on religion, on political or economic ideas and institutions.18
In consequence, they argued that there was neither any single precise
way to define nationality, nor any process by which a state could
meet or accommodate such diverse demands with any exactness.
Some Nationalists might be happy with their own church, others
with their language as part of the educational curriculum, some with
a degree of legal autonomy and so forth. The concepts and the way
one addressed them in practice remained open-ended and wholly
contingent upon circumstances.
Secondly, there was a strong sense among the British Idealists
that the concepts of nation and state nonetheless overlapped. Thus,
Muirhead and Hetherington argued that the State can hardly
become in fact what we have said it is in idea, until it takes the form
of a National State.19 For these authors it is only when a State
becomes a Nation that it wins for itself this feeling of personal devotion on the part of its citizens. the boundaries of the nation then
become the boundaries of sentiment.20 However, despite the optimistic reverberation of these remarks, the match between the State
and Nation (or Patria) was not always regarded as either precise or
wholly clear. As Hetherington and Muirhead admit, some states may
include many sub-national groups. Henry Jones, as a keen Welsh
patriot and someone who spent almost all of his adult life in Scotland,
was aware of the resonance of this particular argument. However,
Jones did not advocate Welsh separatism, nor independence from the
United Kingdom. He felt that loyalty to the Welsh nation did not
preclude a broader loyalty to Britain, or indeed to the Empire.
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Patriotic loyalty could thus be multi-layered. The Welsh language,

poetry, prose and music would always keep a distinctive character,
which was perfectly compatible with wider loyalties. Like Jones,
Hetherington and Muirhead also argued that the existence of subnational groups and sub-national loyalties was not necessarily an
insuperable problem. They cite the case of the British Empire as an
example, where imperial loyalty can combine with the warmest of
local patriotism.21 Despite the above argument, they also acknowledge that if there was a wide divergence among nationalities, it could
potentially be a source of weakness within a state. The danger was
even greater if the sub-national groups felt greater kinship or affinity
with the nationality of another state. This, for the authors, was a
common cause of conflict between states.
Thirdly, for most of the British Idealist school there was a central
distinction, which appeared in many commentaries on nationalism
and patriotism, between a more positive or acceptable version and
an unacceptable or negative version. The origin of this distinction
can be found in T. H. Green. Green clearly sensed that there was a
vital contrast. The negative theme is, in fact, quite strongly present in
his work. As he observed, national vanity often masquerades under
the rubric of Patriotism. Nationalism has thus often proved to be a
more serious disturber of peace than dynastic ambition.22 A state,
understood as a nation, will often have its own specific narrow passions which inevitably lead it to judge all questions of international
right from its own point of view.23 Nations, in this sense, for Green, are
rather like individuals judging their own causes from a self-interested
perspective.
The same basic argument is echoed in the work of Bosanquet. He
contended that both patriotism and nationalism were frequently a
source of brainless and often fraudulent clamour, or at best a dangerous fanaticism.24 This theme underpinned much of the Idealists
scepticism over the Boer War and militaristic imperial expansion.
One of the overall more negative assessments of nationalism can
be found in Ritchies work. He expressed strong reservations on the
themes of national self-determination and patriotism. He argued
that nations are only metaphorically organisms and that we should
not be blinded by the positive evaluative connotations of such words
as national freedom and independence. Such empty ideas were often
tied to reactionary causes. However, he did admit that nations could
exist for the benefit of a people. But he added that we should not
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make a fetish of such claims in support of national independence or

national distinctiveness. This is at the heart of his lukewarm view of
the claims of the Boers for independence. In a similar way to J. S.
Mill, Ritchie maintained that often smaller or more ineffective
nationalities actually profit from being absorbed into larger states.
Smaller nationalities progress under such conditions. Thus, absorption by a larger entity may be for their ultimate betterment. It is clear
that Ritchie had no truck with the exclusive rights of any nation,
large or small. He therefore argued (in an evolutionary mode) that if
a nation does not benefit its people, it has no absolute moral right to
block the onward movement of human progress.25 National rights
claims were thus severely qualified by Ritchie.
Despite the Idealist critique of the negative properties of nationalism and patriotism, Green, like Muirhead and Hetherington, takes as
a matter of historical fact that nations are almost inevitably prerequisites for states.26 An underlying social unity was identified, which
could not be sidestepped. As Bosanquet noted, in vivid prose, when
we read John of Gaunts praises of England in Shakespeares Richard
II, we feel ourselves at once in contact with the mind of a social
unity.27 Edward Caird put it forcefully when he contended: a nation
ought to be composed of men who, however numerous, can feel the
throb of one emotion and one impulse of life, and who by such community are at once differentiated from other nations and brought
into living and organic unity with one another.28
Green also suggested that there could be a more acceptable form
of Patriotism. He argued that to feel that sense of social unity as a
good patriotism, the state needed to be more than just a negative
protector of property rights. He comments that the citizen if he is to
have a higher feeling of political duty, must take part in the work
of the state. He must have a share, direct or indirect. in making or
maintaining the laws which he obeys.29 In this sense, he sees some
link between good patriotism and democratic growth. The citizen
must thus take an active interest in the service of the state. In addition, for Green, there need to be underlying ties, a common memory,
traditions and customs (in a strongly Burkean sense). This whole
process is, of course, premised for Green on the state in its policies
and actions embodying the common good.
It is no surprise that Green suggested that a good patriotism could
be found in a state organized in a specific manner. If the state aimed
to accord rights to its own citizens and acted in harmony with the
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common good, then conflict could be minimized, not only within the
state but, as argued in the previous section, also between such states.
Bosanquet, like Green, was also convinced that there was a reasonable form of Patriotism, which could be harnessed to the service of
the good life of citizens. Everything depended on the way the state
was constituted. For Green, if states were thoroughly formed, then
the diversion of Patriotism or Nationalism into conflict was thereby
diminished.
Edward Caird is thus typical among the Idealists in suggesting
British National Patriotism could justifiably celebrate its achievements, not with false pride, but rather with the sobering consciousness of a great vocation.30 It should not be in a spirit of boastfulness
we remember the deeds of our great forefathers, but in acknowledgement this is how the nation helped me, and in asking how may I help
the nation? The recent misadventures of the nation, by which he
alludes to Imperialism and the Boer War, had justifiably invited hostile feelings directed at Britain by other countries. Patriotism for
Great Britain therefore had the added international dimension of
social responsibility:
Help England to maintain the spirit of justice inall her dominions, to labour for the liberation of mankind from the heavy yokes
that still oppress them, to smite down cruelty and wrong throughout all the vast sphere of her influence, to maintain the cause of
the poor, and make them sharers inall the benefits of human existence from which they have been shut out 31
The core argument to be found in Idealists such as Haldane, Caird,
Green, Bosanquet, Jones, Muirhead and others, is that good civil
states, which actively seek the common good for their membership,
will have very little risk of international conflict among themselves.
Indeed, Bosanquet argues explicitly that for a state to revert to war is
evidence in itself of its failure to be the sort of state it ought to be.
Further, for Green and other Idealists, a patriotism (or nationalism) that focuses predominantly on conflict and military supremacy
was more akin to that of the followers of a feudal chief, than to a
proper civil state, and thus needs to be completely repudiated or
reformed. For Green, one could not be genuinely obligated to such a
state. Further, following Green, Hetherington and Muirhead argued:
No nation and no State can claim either that the last devotion of its
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members or that its own supreme duty is to itself alone. As every

right within the State has to be justified by its efficacy for the welfare
of the whole, so every claim to national existence must be vindicated
by reference to the whole community of mankind.32 In this sense,
the Idealists argued for a bottom-up mode of cosmopolitanism,
something that would arise out of the customary structures of properly formed civil states. We will return to this below in discussing the
expansion of the moral community.
Idealism, Imperialism and the Boer War

It is important to make a number of initial distinctions, on the one

hand, within the British Idealist conception of Empire and Imperial
policy and, on the other, the assessment of the 1899 Boer War. There
were some direct overlaps between these two issues; however, in many
instances, arguments diverged. The situation was complex. First,
many British Idealists who were sympathetic or indeed enthusiastic
about Imperial policy and the Empire were nonetheless hostile to the
second Boer War (18991902). Secondly, there was a marked separation among British Idealists over their understanding of the nature
of the Boer War itself. Thirdly, there were further divisions over the
status and nature of Imperialism. Fourthly, the British Idealists were
not alone in these rancorous internal divisions. They reflected
the more general state of British civil society at the time and indeed
contentions within the British Liberal Party, Independent Labour
Party and the various socialist groups, such as the Fabians. Even
within significant groups inside the Liberal Party, such as the New
Liberals, there were further severe splits over these issues.
The term Imperialism developed in public usage within Britain
during the 1890s, largely supplementing the term Empire as part of a
justification for extending British possessions abroad. British imperial policy remained an odd mixture of political, legalistic and economic motivations. The older colonies, in particular, had often taken
on a vocabulary of political liberty and constitutionality; by the late
nineteenth century they were largely at liberty to determine their own
futures. However, the manner in which the Empire developed was still
both complex and messy. Empire had become, by the nineteenth century, a rich forest of types of government, usually still animated, at
root, by a common interest in both commercial growth and constitutional rule. Canada, Australia and South Africa formally became
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states in1867, 1900 and 1909, respectively. This constitutional movement was later enshrined in the statement of the Imperial Conference
of 1926, which defined dominions as autonomous communities
within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate to
one another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though
united by a common allegiance to the crown and freely associated as
members of the British Commonwealth of nations.33
Muirhead, writing at the height of the Boer War, saw four phases
in terms of British nineteenth century attitudes to Imperialism:
enthusiasm, indifference, hostility and then avid jingoism, exemplified in the initial phase of the Boer War. Ironically, the periods of
indifference and hostility did unexpectedly see significant acquisitions of territories and markets. Yet the period of enthusiasm for
Empire, from the 1880s to 1890s, saw the final phase of such acquisition. Thus, the scramble for Africa (embodied in the 1883 Berlin conference) was merely the last of the phases of acquisition made during
the nineteenth century. What has not often been grasped about these
latter discussions is the quite subtle but marked differences in those
who reflected on Imperialism. Social Imperialism was largely justified on the grounds of the gains abroad, which could then be used to
fund the growing demands (from various groups) for expensive social
welfare reforms on the domestic front. For some this was a business
proposition, since welfare spending could help to mollify class antagonisms and blunt social radicalism. Controversially, at the time, for
Joseph Chamberlain (a liberal-conservative by inclination), Social
Imperialism was linked directly to Tariff reform and a system of
imperial preferences. Many in the Liberal Party opposed Chamberlain,
yet there was also a group of Liberal Imperialists, including Lord
Rosebery, who gave Chamberlains policy some qualified support.
R. B. Haldane, H. H. Asquith, Edward Grey and Herbert Samuel,
all joined together in a Liberal League in1902 supporting a conception of Imperial policy. This group of Liberal Imperialists
commonly known as the Limps led a vigorous campaign for
extending liberal state activity into the Empire. It is important to
underline the point that many of these figures, such as Haldane,
Samuel and Asquith, were also key supporters of the New Liberalism.
However, whereas Chamberlain coupled Social Imperialism with
social reform, financed out of tariffs and increased charges on commodities, the Liberal Imperialists saw the finance for social reform
arising from taxation of profits derived from imperial ventures.
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There were a number of British Liberals who felt ambivalent about

Imperial policy. During the period of the Boer War, this unease
became pronounced in many of the so-called little Englanders, such
as David Lloyd George and Henry Campbell-Bannerman who
fiercely opposed to Chamberlains policies. Liberalism, for these latter
figures, signified constitutional self-determination. Imperialism, on
this reading, denoted arbitrary control by an external power.
Liberalism was seen to be incompatible with Imperialism. From a
more economic perspective, the New Liberal writer J. A. Hobson
delivered what is now regarded as the most significant attack on the
exploitative character of Imperialism, in his book Imperialism (1902).
The argument, in a nutshell, was that financial interests in Britain
were drawn together by a common resistance to attacks on property
and privilege. The attacks arose in the context of growing pressure, in
the 1890s, for social reform and thus expanding public expenditure.
In order to meet this issue head-on, such vested financial groups gave
their support to Imperialism, which enabled new resources to be
channelled into domestic policy, without unduly affecting profits and
property interests. Raucous jingoism tended to dominate the sphere
of social reform. In commentators such as Lenin and Luxemburg
influenced by Hobson the motif of economic exploitation figured
even more prominently, explaining Imperialism as a higher stage of
capitalism itself. However, the New Liberals Hobson and Hobhouse,
both adamantly opposed Social and Liberal Imperialism. They tried
contrary to the views of both to sever the connection between
genuine social reform and Imperialism. Hobson largely saw
Imperialism as a conspiracy of selfish financial interests. For
Hobhouse, like Lloyd George, Imperialism stood for the undemocratic and arbitrary subordination of peoples and the advocacy of
racial supremacy. Thus, for them, there could be no such thing as
democratic or constitutionally motivated Imperialism.
Significantly, for Hobhouse, British Idealism was seen to have
paved the way for Imperialism. He argued that the Idealists exalted
view of the state had encouraged jingoism, militarism and imperial
arrogance, at the expense of morality. Thus, Hobhouse tried to dismiss British Idealism as largely on par with conservative instincts
and anti-reformism.34 Hobhouse was clearly either dissimulating, or
was carried away by the passion and rhetoric of the moment. He
quite clearly knew of T. H. Greens own radical and anti-imperial
views, which he had learnt from Bright and Cobden. Hobhouse,
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in fact, remained an admirer of Green throughout his life, and must

also have been aware that Idealists, such as Edward Caird and
Bernard Bosanquet, opposed the Boer War. Caird, for example, took
part in a protest against honouring Cecil Rhodes with a degree at
Oxford University. Further, both Hobson and Hobhouse were alert,
vis--vis their opposition to the Liberal Imperialists, to the fact that
New Liberals themselves were also at odds over the issue. As knowledgeable social commentators, they would also have known that
analogous divisions of judgement were reflected in socialist groups.
Whereas, there was unease in some socialist circles concerning the
capitalist exploitation of native populations in the Empire, a group
of Fabian socialists nonetheless actively promoted Imperialism, particularly in the book Fabianism and the Empire: A Manifesto (1900),
edited by George Bernard Shaw, and vigorously supported by Sidney
and Beatrice Webb.35 The choice that such Fabians perceived was
simple. The globe, as a matter of fact, was being gradually partitioned between great European powers. If Britain wished to remain
a global power, she should actively pursue Imperialism. If certain
countries allowed themselves to be taken over, it was more than likely
a sign of their social inefficiency. As long as the expansion of Empire
was conceived on collectivist, and not liberal individualist lines,
and the aim was greater social efficiency, then the Empire could, they
argued, be transformed into a socialist commonwealth. This would
be exploited for the collective public good and not private gain. The
intellectual background to such socialist-inspired imperialist expansionism, in Webbs and Shaw was, more than likely, the social
Darwinism of figures such as Karl Pearson and Benjamin Kidd.
Primitive races would evolve to higher levels via bureaucratically
organized Socialist Imperialism. Ultimately, they envisaged the
Empire as one large collectivized state-like entity. This form of analysis led later Fabians, such as Leonard Woolf, to toy with the notion
of world government deriving from the imperial argument.36
Yet, clearly Hobhouse was nonetheless still, in small part, correct
in his judgement of Idealism. There were other British Idealists, such
as J. H. Muirhead, R. B. Haldane, D. G. Ritchie and Henry Jones,
who accepted a form of ethically motivated and socially responsive
Imperialism. The key question for these latter Idealists was: Had
Imperialism enhanced the capacities for self-government and liberty
or was it merely exploiting them for economic profit? As Muirhead
observed, the imperial administration must aim at what is best in the
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instincts and traditions of these races themselves. It must not destroy

the local customs and faiths. It must let the local peoples know
through education and example what good government means.37
The arguments on Imperialism paralleled directly those on the
domestic state front. The object of all state interference was to
enhance the common good and liberty. Lawful constraints could be
used here to augment the life of people by providing greater social
guarantees and enabling opportunities. Thus, initial legal restraint,
associated with imperial control, could be justified by the extent to
which it contributed towards both the basic protection and enhancement of greater opportunities for development and ultimately selfgovernance among colonized peoples.
However, it was unquestionably the second Boer war (18991902)
that really focused the painful and jarring discussion on Imperialism
in Britain. The Boer War was, as Hobhouse testifies, the test issue of
[his] generation.38 Among the British Idealists, there was clearly an
intricate discordance. On one level all British Idealists, irrespective of
their view of the Boer War, condemned aggressive Imperialism.
However, as argued above, some accepted the idea of a socially and
ethically motivated Imperialism. One optimistic expression of this
impulse can be seen in the work of the Liberal Imperialist, New Liberal
and Idealist, R. B. Haldane. Haldanes enthusiasm for education
could, he thought, be extended to the Empire, particularly via the
medium of university education. As he asked in1902: How far off
are we from the realisation of the idea of a great postgraduate teaching centre for the Empire?39 This became his great scheme for the idea
of an Imperial university, which would act as the mind of the Empire.
It is here his Idealist vision is at its most expansive. He thought that
the British Empire could become stronger if the various peoples voluntarily subscribed to it. He advocated, for example, Home Rule in
Ireland on the same grounds, and was, in fact, a committed HomeRuler for the whole of his political career. As Haldane noted, There
is a larger conception of Imperialism than that which forms a party
cry at elections. This larger conception of Imperialism is less controversial, but not less far-reaching. 40 What could unify the Empire?
For Haldane, the answer again lay in the sphere of education, specifically in his vision of an Imperial University.
However, in terms of the Boer War, anxieties and division still divided
the British Idealists. D. G. Ritchie, in some writings, was a lot less condemnatory of the British war in South Africa than other Idealists. As a
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Fabian on the more socially radical side of the Idealists, he nonetheless

attributed much pro-Boer and anti-Imperial sentiment in Britain to the
propaganda of Afrikaners and the sensationalism of journalists. He
thought the nature of Empire and Imperialism was seriously misunderstood by critics. It was inevitable, he argued, on evolutionary grounds,
that vigorous and enterprising white races should overflow into other
lands as it is that water should run down hill.41
The Boer War, in his view, was justified. It was a war between two
incompatible types of society and as inevitable as the conflict between
the Northern and Southern states in America. There may have been
much in the Southern states that attracted Englishmen, and much in
the North that repelled them. For Ritchie, though, everyone admitted that the cause of the union was the cause of true democracy, of
civilisation, of progress.42 The Boer War was, for him, analogous to
the civil war in America.
On the other hand, matters were not straightforward in this domain.
Henry Jones who despite aligning himself with the Liberal Imperialists
and being active in the Liberal League nonetheless applauded many
of Hobhouses criticisms of Imperialism and Boer War policy. He suggested that Hobhouses criticisms were a reasonably accurate account
of the political climate during the war itself, although he dissented
from their shrill self-righteous tone. Further, moral progress for
Idealists, such as Jones, was still possible in this darker scenario. The
ultimate destiny, for most pre-1914 Idealists, of either the state or the
Empire, lay not in the particulars of tariff reform, free trade or protectionism, but rather in the overall moral development of citizens. Green,
Bosanquet, Jones and most other pre-1914 Idealists argued that
improvements in the international sphere were largely dependent on
moral improvements within the domestic state sphere. Political institutions were a reflection of the will and purposes of their membership.
Thus, the Boer War, for all Idealists, undoubtedly reflected strong
components of greed and brutality (even for Ritchie), yet at the same
time, for Jones, it was still a war that aimed, however ineffectually, to
restore basic liberties and was intended ultimately to reinstate the
moral and legal bonds of Empire. What was needed, as Haldane,
Muirhead and Jones argued, was a more far-sighted Imperialism,
which would address directly the pernicious behaviour of business
interests and prevent cruel exploitation of native peoples.
Muirhead was not as publicly vociferous in his opposition to the
Boer War as he might have liked to have been. As a Professor at
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Birmingham University, he was aware of the presence of Joseph

Chamberlain Birmingham Universitys founder and then Chancellor.
However, Muirhead expressed himself robustly in private. Although
critical of the Boer War, Muirhead remained sympathetic to the idea
of Imperialism, acknowledging that it was a historical fact and therefore needed to be addressed and dealt with in as humane and supportive a way as possible. He argued that irrespective of how Britain had
come to gain an Empire, the existing circumstances nonetheless
imposed ethical responsibilities, which could not be sidestepped. To
disown these responsibilities would be a crime outweighing all we
have committed in creating it.43 Muirhead, like Jones and Haldane,
stressed the moral and spiritual foundations of Empire and Imperial
policy, as necessary to promote the unity of sentiment, which would
bind the whole together organically. This was a vision of Empire,
which other Idealists, like Bosanquet, Haldane, Hetherington and
Ritchie, shared. Its core components, not unusual for the time, given
the widespread acceptance of the theory of stages of human development from savagery to barbarism and then civilization, were an explicit
ranking of races and nations, according to their degree of civilization.
It acknowledged that different forms of government were appropriate
at different stages of development. However, whatever government
prevailed, it had to be for the people, even if it was not by the people.
Such rule had to be in accord with the rule of law. Reason of state and
arbitrary rule were completely unacceptable. The ultimate aim of
Empire (and a proper Imperial policy) was to educate people to a level
where they could ultimately exercise self-rule. As Jones and other
Idealists argued, the Empire could not be developed or maintained by
financial inducement or trade preferences. If its unity depended on
such a cash nexus, then the Empire was already lost. Government of
the colonies, for Idealists who supported Empire, had to be for the
sake of the governed. Such sentiments were echoed by Edward Caird
in an address to students at Balliol College. He reminds them of how
great a colonizing nation England had become, showing the might of
its power in gaining mastery over the uncivilised races. Despite their
initiation in greed and violence, the British government had opened up
those countries to the privileges of the governed, ensuring that commerce went hand in hand with civilization.44
Muirhead and Hetherington, like Caird, Jones and Haldane,
acknowledged that Britain could not pretend that it had exercised
anywhere near the same degree of vigilance in protecting the rights
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of indigenous peoples, as it had for the security and material benefits

of the civilized white peoples. They suggested, however, that
Britain had to adopt a more honourable attitude to the less developed races, and in regulating the relations between the civilized and
uncivilized, the interests of the latter should predominate.45 Muirhead
and Hetherington did not minimize the difficulties of preparing a
people for self-rule, but nevertheless believed that this must be the
aim of all ruling imperial powers.
Freedom, as the British Idealists well knew, is not a gift that can be
endowed upon one person by another. An advanced nation, such as
Great Britain, had a duty to create the conditions for indigenous
people by their own endeavours to attain freedom. The moral principle employed was essentially that espoused by Edmund Burke. It
was a kind of maternalism, which later became articulated in a doctrine of trusteeship. The Imperial powers would act as guardians,
imparting to those in their care the skills and principles to guide
them to the age of reason, with a view to untying the colony from its
mothers apron strings. British Idealists did not want to absolve the
mother country of her responsibilities in this regard. Social or economic Imperialism was simply ruled out because, as MacCunn
observes, all peoples have the capacity for a good life, and it is this
principle that forbids us to treat them as brutes or chattels.46 In
summary, Idealists rejected the form of Imperialism that Hobhouse
and Hobson attributed to them. The irony is that even Hobhouse
and Hobson acknowledged that given the fact of Imperialism that
Britain had to accept its ethical responsibilities in assisting countries
towards self-rule. Furthermore, despite the more popular understanding of Hobhouse and Hobsons critique of Imperialism, it is
worth underscoring the point that neither of the latter thinkers was
completely opposed to ethical Imperialism. For example, as
Hobhouse noted, if Imperialism means a sense of the honour of the
Empire and of its duties to subject races, then we cannot have too
much Imperialism.47 This was precisely the Idealist point. Such an
Imperialism and Empire would be compatible with morality and
democracy. An Empire founded on the aim of ethical self-government would be as acceptable to Hobhouse and Hobson as to Jones,
Haldane or Muirhead.
Thus, Hobhouse was therefore clearly mistaken in his attempt to
caricature Idealism as simply Imperialist and conservative in its political instincts. The situation, as we have seen, was much more complex
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and nuanced. Many Idealists were highly critical of both Imperialism

and the Boer War; some supported an ethical Imperialism, but were
profoundly critical of the Boer War. Some were sympathetic to a
grander conception of Empire, and rejected alternative conceptions
of Imperialism, such as those based on social and economic grounds
of exploitation. In general terms, all the British Idealists, regardless,
opposed an aggressive, economic or militaristic sense of Imperialism,
particularly one that did not take into consideration the interests and
customs of colonized peoples. If they were sympathetic to Imperialism,
they were disposed generally to a nobler ethical conception premised
on education and ultimate self-rule. However, a minority of Idealists,
such as Ritchie, could see some virtue in both Imperialism, in general,
and the second Boer War, in particular.
It is though still worth underlining the point that Ritchies support
for the Boer War was nonetheless subtle. He was aware of the injustices and atrocities, but saw beneath all that a much wider principle
than national self-interest or colonial domination. His justification
was based upon a sense of cosmopolitan and humanitarian duty. He
contended that he saw in the second Boer War a spirit of solidarity,
a willingness to sacrifice personal advantage and convenience, and
even life itself to the cause, not of an isolated nation, but of free
institutions, civilisation, and progress.48 Such causes were premised
on the belief that nations and states were temporary communities
that may be transcended and transformed into wider ethical entities,
gradually encompassing the whole world. Ritchie passionately
denounced those who accused apologists of the war for embracing a
false Patriotism, which elevated the nation above the higher ends of
humanity. It was to the Boers to whom these words should be
directed, Ritchie contended, and not to those who hold that the
British Empire and the wider and wider federation to which it will
lead the way a federation of many States of mixed and diverse
races is a far healthier organ of humanity than the independent domination of a backward race.49
Expanding the Moral Community

We have seen that for the Idealists morality, justice and rights are
firmly grounded in the nation state, which is the embodiment of a
bounded ethical community comprising the requisite solidarity for
a common purpose or common good. Edward Caird forcefully
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expresses this view when he maintained: the highest really organic

society, the greatest actual ethical union that exists is the national
state. Cosmopolitan charity is still in the main an individualistic
thing, a thing that shows itself in the relations of individual man to
man, and not in the creation of a real society of mankind.50 Despite
this apparent rejection of the existence of a wider social and moral
community beyond the nation state, Caird reminds us of Greens
words and aspirations that the road to a genuine enthusiasm for
humanity is the same highway that reason takes us on the journey
from good neighbour, to honest citizen and further, until the whole
world is my neighbour.51
We saw in Chapter 1 how pervasive evolutionary theory had
become in the Victorian era, and how it coloured all aspects of life.
Evolution lent itself to naturalistic conceptions of international relations and justifications of war and Imperialism. Evolution was also
invoked to justify peaceful relations, and not only by those who subscribed to the distinction between cosmic evolution and ethical evolution, or the evolution of morals. It was nevertheless the case that
A. R. Wallace and T. H. Huxley were at the forefront in denying the
right of biology untrammelled access to the realm of social behaviour and values.52 Discussions of both kinds often explicitly or
implicitly assumed a theory of stages of evolutionary development,
and depending upon which stage people may inhabit, relations
between them and the civilized nations may differ.
It was quite common among later nineteenth-century theorists,
influenced by evolutionary ideas, to extend the struggle for existence
beyond individual competition to groups or communities, particularly nations. Natural Selection was deemed to be a mechanism of
evolution that operated not only at the individual level, that is what
Karl Pearson called intra-group competition, but also among groups
ranging from small communities to nations, which compete against
each other in the struggle for survival. In Bosanquets view, the division of labour and exchange of services mitigate natures competition
(red in tooth and claw), and make the group itself the primary unit in
the struggle for existence.53 In Karl Pearson and Benjamin Kidd, and
also to a lesser extent in David Ritchie, the idea of group selection led
to a justification of Imperialism in which the favoured races had a
right to exploit the lower in the competition for existence. The most
extreme and uncomplicated of these was Kidd. History, for him,
exemplified the remorseless spectacle of competition, selection and
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survival. In agreement with Weissman, he contended where there is

progress it is the result of selection and rejection. Both individuals
and societies were subject to the same natural laws in this respect, that
is, the survival of the fittest. Rationality and reason could not stem
the flow of such a tidal force. Only religion, in Kidds view, could
provide the ultra-rational constraint on unmitigated competition.54
Darwin and Spencer themselves gave little ammunition in support
of naturalistic theories of war, Imperialism and international relations. Spencer rejected any such conclusions by suggesting that in the
evolution from militant to industrial society, physical competition is
replaced by commercial competition and co-operation. He was, for
example, appalled at British policy during the Boer War condemning
it as a blatant struggle for mastery, and thus reacted critically to the
potential erosion of traditional freedoms posed by wartime government constraints.55 In The Descent of Man, Darwin attempted to discern human-like consciousness, morality, aesthetics as well as
reasoning ascending the evolutionary scale from animals, to lower
primates, savages, barbarians and children. He also tried to discover
animal senses and instincts, as well as habits in humans. In this latter
book, Darwin was more inclined to talk about natural sociability and
cooperation than natural aggression. Social cohesiveness, military
discipline and skilled organization in technology and weaponry had
led to success in overcoming threats from other groups. People, so
endowed, were able to reproduce in numbers in a safe environment,
potentially advancing social and moral qualities throughout the world
by diffusion. 56 Darwin suggested that ethical values would be inculcated into the young by example through education. Darwin identified the same instinct or feeling as Jean Jacques Rousseau in mitigating
the brutality of nature, namely sympathy or compassion. Modern
warfare may, at the very least, be retrogressive in exposing young
healthy men to the perils of battle and the travails of sexually transmitted diseases, much more prevalent in the forces than among the
civilian population. There is much equivocation in Darwin on the
issues of higher and lower civilizations, the tendency to warfare, as
well as upon the way that sentiments and morals are passed on to
progeny, but there is little denying the optimistic overall framework
within which his speculative history of the ascent of man is set. He
indicates that gradually our instinctive sympathy, or what he sometimes calls our virtue of sympathy, one of the noblest of mans endowments, will lead to the transcending of smaller group loyalties such as
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those to the nation, and extend to men of all nations and races and
even to all sentient things.57 In this respect, Darwin and the British
Idealists are in agreement. The issues relate to the way the moral community may be expanded, and for the Idealists it is more of a rational
than an emotional mechanism, but both are necessary for the solidarity required to sustain a moral community beyond the state.
As we saw, the British Idealists positioned themselves in the evolutionary debate with the naturalists by asserting the unity of nature
and spirit, but sided more with the ethical evolutionists, such as
Huxley and Wallace, in maintaining that nature, however refined it
may be in the theories of Darwin and Spencer, could not act as the
guide to morality. They subscribed to Hegels version of evolution,
or emanation, in which the higher explains the lower in the evolutionary process. They nevertheless developed their own views on
international relations and the enlargement of the moral community
beyond the state, which exhibited a greater degree of optimism than
Hegel was willing to concede. The differences here were though
partly due to what had happened subsequently since Hegels days.
The British Idealists were basically more optimistic than Hegel in
believing that the organization of sovereign states would be superseded by a gradual extension of the moral community, embodying
the common good. However primitive a community may be, Green
contends, consciousness of a good and participation in it are never
absent. Rational consciousness of the unfulfilled potential of a common reason impresses upon us a consciousness of wider circles of
people who have claims upon us and upon whom we may justifiably
make claims. Rights belong to the moral person who has a capacity
for conceiving of a good that is common and of acting in such a way
as to attain it. These rights or powers do not depend on the state, but
upon social relations. Even slaves, insofar as they have social relations, both with other slaves and with the families who own them,
have this capacity for conceiving a common good and for acting
upon it.58
The important point is this: insofar as membership of any community is in principle membership of all communities, each person
has a right to be treated as a free person by all other persons, and not
to be subjected to force unless it is to prevent force. Recognizing anyone as human acknowledges they are capable of participating in the
common good. Green argues: It is not the sense of duty to a neighbour, but the practical answer to the question Who is my neighbour?
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that has varied.59 The road to a cosmopolitan morality begins at

home, in the family, neighbourhood, nation and beyond to international morality. It is not the idea of a cosmopolitan humanity that
requires explanation, but the retreat from it by sectional interests and
privileged classes anxious to give their support to any counter-theory
that furthers their exclusive and privileged ends.60
There were differences among the Idealists over the extent to which
the international community was merely nascent or something of
much more moral substance. Bosanquet, Caird and Bradley, for
example, were sceptical but not pessimistic. They believed that the
unifying process of individuals in organized wholes, such as the
nation, would in time be superseded and pass beyond the boundaries
of the state. They believed, however, that the process had hardly
begun. Bradley conceded that while right exists between states, it did
not comprise a visible community, and to take moral rules applicable to citizens and transform them into abstractions by applying
them everywhere was indefensible.61 An organism requires consciousness of its connections, Bosanquet contends, and no such consciousness has yet been attained in the international sphere, nor was likely
to develop in the foreseeable future. There is no international moral
tradition comparable with that sustained within a state. Bradley and
Bosanquet thus maintained that before humanity could be regarded
as an organic whole, a consciousness of it must exist. There must be
a communal mind expressive of a general will. Nothing more existed,
however, than mere reciprocal influence, or external convention.62
In addition, Jones suggests that international ethics, measured in any
recognized and ordinary moral terms, are crude, confused, uncertain, and extra-ordinarily feeble.63 Like Hegel, however, Bosanquet
acknowledges that the relations among states are nevertheless mitigated
by humane conventions and usages.64
Such conventions and usages have a more concrete existence as constraining forces for such British Idealists as Sorley, MacKenzie,
MacCunn, Jones, Watson, A. C. Bradley, Haldane and Collingwood.
Constant interaction among nations, especially in the context of the
common heritage of Europeans, has given rise to a common morality
and even, for example, a common law of Europe. Morality, they maintain, does not require or rest upon legal enforcement, and the performance of ones moral duty does not require legal sanction. Much of
morality falls outside of the scope of law, such as compassion, decency
and humaneness, which do not require enforced obedience.65 The classic
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statement of this point of view among British Idealists has already been
alluded to, namely, Lord Haldanes Higher Nationality: A Study in
Law and Ethics.66 Between civil states there are few hindrances to prevent an international customary body of rules developing what Haldane
called an international Sittlichkeit. Sittlichkeit for Haldane is the system
of habitual or customary conduct, ethical rather than legal, which
embraces all those obligations of the citizen. These customs were basic
and assumed in civil conduct.67 It therefore represented a habit of mind
and action.68 Another way of describing it is as the system of dominant
organizing ideas embodied in international customary rules. Haldane
sees this subtle body of obligations present inall the institutions of civil
society and the state. The central question he puts is: Can there be Sitte
that surpasses particular states? His answer is quite direct. Sociologically
and legally there is nothing to prevent this. Once states are educated and
rational enough, they will begin inevitably begin to consider the opinions of other states. With common civilizing ideas gradually evolving,
Haldane thus envisages a developing global system of legal and moral
norms. He refers explicitly to this as an international Sittlichkeit.
However, such Sitte would nonetheless be embedded constitutively inall
genuinely civil states. The only hindrance to this is the absence of a clear
conception of principle.69
More recently, R. G. Collingwood had criticized those and some
Idealists like Hegel, Ritchie and Caird would be among them who
have a narrow conception of international law, proclaiming it as a
pseudo-law, or not law at all, because it lacks an international sovereign and collective enforcement. Such a conception, he contends,
shows an unawareness of modern European history. Customary law,
both civil and international, was the rule rather than the exception in
later medieval early modern Europe. In the international sphere, it
resembles the condition of law in the Icelandic sagas, a form of customary law which was never formally enacted, but was articulated by
the Law-Speaker and comes about as a result of the everyday business
of interaction, commerce and communication. No group of people
was charged with its execution, but some may form alliances to crush
those who disregard it.70
The British Idealists, on the whole, favoured the view that law was
the expression of the will of an organized sovereign community,
enforceable by its agents. Therefore, international agreements could be
extended the title of law only as a matter of courtesy. In this respect,
when compared with classic international relations theory, they are
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closer to Pufendorf than to Grotius. Bradley remarks that it is doubtful if international law can be said to exist, and Ritchie calls it a
convenient fiction.71 In this respect, they follow Hegel who maintains
that the so-called international law is not, strictly speaking, law at all
because it lacks a sovereign to enforce it.72 This was also a view common to Thomas Hobbes and John Austin. Even though international
law is predicated on the principle that it ought to be obeyed, universal
right, the basis of such an obligation, is not actual. This is why Ritchie
argued that resort to arbitration between nations remains purely voluntary, but: Everything that helps towards the ideal of a federation
of the world (not in a mere sentimental sense but in the stricter political sense of the term federation) or of greater portions of it, seems
to me a genuine movement for durable peace.73
Morality and the higher ideals of humanity do not pre-exist in a
realm outside of the state awaiting apprehension and application.
We cannot force or contrive them and impose them on an unfertile
ground by means of a legal framework. A legal framework may promote a common sympathy, but the sympathy is itself a prerequisite
of success.74 The British Idealists believe our conception of the good
life and of the highest ideals of civilization are derived from our participation in a community, which is itself a partial realization of
these ideals. Our nation provides and sustains for us the standards
we project upon humanity. A nations sense of honour, decency and
propriety is taken by it and projected onto the wider world as humanitarian principles.75 This does not mean that one ideal is as good as
another. Each state may travel a different path, and all seek to emulate the best that they find in the representatives of civilization they
admire most. The conception of freedom, human dignity, mutual
recognition and self-realization precludes certain ideals gaining purchase, and in this respect Idealism rejects relativism.
Conclusion

We have seen that Patriotism and humanitarianism are not for the
British Idealists incompatible principles. The nation or state is the
vehicle through which we contribute to humanity. It is being a good
citizen and ensuring that the state is genuinely committed to its purpose that facilitate what is best in the state being translated into the
cosmopolitan ideal. Sectional interest and privilege, the causes of
external and internal antagonism, will wither away in the face of the
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Patriotism of the good citizen. In general, then, the British Idealists

are suggesting that the cause of humanity is furthered by putting
ones own house in order, and this requires moralizing the institutions and relations of the state as they stand. 76
The issues of Imperialism and the Boer War were divisive among
all sections of society, and likewise the British Idealists differed in
their views and the degree to which they were prepared to support
either. The bottom line was that Imperialism was a fact and Britain,
the more humanitarian critics believed, could not absolve itself of the
responsibility of preparing the backward peoples for self-government and assisting them in their quest to join the community of more
developed states. They acknowledged that grave injustices had been
perpetrated against less advanced peoples, but believed that a more
humane and sensitive Imperialism could deliver them from subjugation. This ethically orientated Imperialism was generally acceptable
even to some of the more severe critics of Imperialism, such as
Hobhouse and Hobson. Whatever ones attitude to Imperialism,
there was no necessary conclusion determining the stance one took
towards the Boer War. There were genuine principled disagreements,
often resting on the imputation of motives and interpretations of the
steady flow of information, often contradictory, about local atrocities. In general, views were divided along two lines. There were those
who opposed the war because they believed that Britain was caught
up in jingoistic nationalism, wanting to assert its military might over
the Boers and rule South Africa in its own interests. Supporters of the
war often saw wider issues of principle, such as the honouring of the
duty to include black South Africans in a democratic process, achieving the wider cosmopolitan ideals of justice and humanity and eliminating racial discrimination and bigotry.
However, the carnage of the First World War transformed even the
most sceptical of the British Idealists towards internationalism. The
aftermath of the war provided the occasion to support a federation
of states as the salvation of mankind. A League of Peace, or League
of Nations, was enthusiastically supported by many Idealists.
Bosanquet, for example, welcomed the establishment of the League
of Nations as the hope and refuge of mankind.77 He was still concerned, however, that any such experiment in international organization preserved the individual national contributions to mankind.78
The general enthusiasm for international cooperation, following the
19141918 war, demonstrated to the British Idealists the existence of
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a will stronger than they had envisaged. They were still cautious in
their enthusiasm for the League of Nations, mainly because the
moral will by which alone success could be guaranteed was still
emerging and fragile. Formal structures and mere agreements would
not transform international relations, without the foundation of a
common community spirit.79 Yet, they nonetheless retained what
might be considered their trademark optimism about what could be
achieved in future international cooperation.
What again stands out from these protracted British Idealists
reflections on war, Imperialism, international organization and international law is the thoughtful and subtle adaptability of British
Idealist thought in the way it responded to events. As we have seen in
prior chapters, despite internal conflicts within the school, British
Idealism did contain immensely sophisticated and yet often understated moral and philosophical resources, enabling it to respond in
creative and constructive ways to changing circumstances. The arguments we see within Idealism concerning international events are
still, in general terms, pertinent to our own day, particularly to our
current judgements on war, humanitarian intervention and international law. We have neither outgrown their problems, nor, as yet,
actually completely surpassed, in any lasting or meaningful way, the
systematic thoroughness and intellectual substance of their rich and
complex answers.

154

Notes

Introduction
1 Oakeshott, M. Beyond Realism and Idealism. A review of W. M. Urban,
Beyond Realism and Idealism in Michael Oakeshott, The Concept
of a Philosophical Jurisprudence, L. OSullivan (ed.), Exeter: Imprint
Academic, pp. 32122, 2006.
2 Sorley, W. R. Recent Tendencies in Ethics, Edinburgh: Blackwood,
p. 87, 1904.
3 Green, T. H. Prolegomena to Ethics [original publication 1883], London:
Longmans, Green, 183, 1907.
4 Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies, second edition [original publication
1876], Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 116, 1962. Cf. Green, Prolegomena to
Ethics, 184.

Chapter 1
1 Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason, London: Dent, p. 12, 1946. Karl
Reinhold in developing the ideas of the Critique on representation and
J. G. Fichte on self-consciousness sought to give Kants work a firmer
foundation. These thinkers formulated methods and ideas that were
to result in radical and novel methodologies, such as phenomenological description. See Scott Jenkins, Self-Consciousness, System and
Dialectic in D. Moyer (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth
Century Philosophy, London: Routledge, p. 3, 2010.
2 Cited in Muirhead, J. H. Coleridge as Philosopher, London: George
Allen and Unwin, p. 49, 1930.
3 Cited in Davie, G. The Democratic Intellect, Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, p. 276, 1961. Davie argues that Ferrier continues of
the Common Sense school, occupying its rationalist end as opposed to
the intuitionist middle.
4 See Ferrier, J. F. The Institutes of Metaphysic: The Theory of the Knowing
Mind: The Theory of Knowing and Being, Edinburgh: Blackwood, pp.
912, 1856, first edition 1854.
5 Andrew Seth later changed his name to Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison in
order to satisfy the terms of a bequest.
155

Notes

6 Haldane and Seth had also tried unsuccessfully to establish a journal

that aimed at giving more attention to metaphysics than the preeminent
philosophical journal Mind.
7 It became received wisdom to discuss the idea of My Station and Its
Duties as Bradleys communitarian theory of ethics. Peter Nicholson,
however, has convincingly shown that Bradleys own position is articulated in the chapter on Ideal Morality. Peter Nicholson, The Political
Philosophy of the British Idealists, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 153, 1990.
8 Edward Caird, Preface, in Essays in Philosophical Criticism, A. Seth and
R. B. Haldane (eds), London: Longmans Green, pp. 23, 1883.
9 Seth, A. Philosophy As Criticism of Categories in Essays in Philosophical
Criticism, pp. 840. Also see J. H. Muirhead, The Platonic Tradition
in Anglo-Saxon Philosophy, London: Allen and Unwin, pp. 17475,
1931.
10 Carlyle, T. The Works of Thomas Carlyle, H. D. Traill (ed.), London:
Chapman and Hall, Vol. 27, p. 59, 18961899.
11 Muirhead, J. H. The Platonic Tradition, p. 146.
12 See Hamilton, W. On the Philosophy of the Unconditioned (1829)
in Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University
Reform, Chiefly from the Edinburgh Review; Corrected, Vindicated,
Enlarged, in Notes and Appendices, London, Brown Green and
Longmans, 1853. For a clear statement of his basic position see, Phillip
Ferreira, Ferrier, James Frederick in Dictionary of Nineteenth Century
British Philosophers, W. J. Mander and P. F. Sell (eds), Bristol: Thoemmes,
pp. 38286, 2002.
13 Sorley, W. R. A History of English Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, p. 284, 1937.
14 James Frederick Ferrier, Institutes of Metaphysics, p. 495.
15 See Bradley, J. Hegel in Britain: A Brief History of British Commentary
and Attitudes, Heythrop Journal, XX, p. 7, 1979.
16 Davie, G. Democratic Intellect, p. 299.
17 Ferrier, F. Institutes of Metaphysics, p. 80.
18 McKillop, A. B. A Disciplined Intelligence, Montreal and Kingston:
McGill Queens University Press, p. 173, 2001.
19 Ferrier, F. Institutes of Metaphysic, p. 536. For a clear statement of
his basic position see, Phillip Ferreira, Ferrier, James Frederick,
pp. 38286.
20 Ferrier, Institutes of Metaphysics, p. 522.
21 Cited in Davie, G. Democratic Intellect, p. 335. Ferrier is reputed to have
said that he turned Hegels book Science of Logic upside-down in the
hope that it would become clearer.
22 He authored the book on him in the Blackwood Philosophical Classics
series. A. Campbell Fraser, Berkeley, Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1881.
Fraser also edited Berkeleys Works in four Volumes, 1901.
23 We will return to the dispute between Absolute and Personal Idealism in
the next chapter.

156

Notes

24 Fraser, A. C. Berkeley and Spiritual Realism, London: Constable, p. 82,

1908.
25 Fraser, A. C. Berkeley and Spiritual Realism, p. 84.
26 Barbour, G. F. Memoir in Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison, The Balfour
Lectures on Realism, London and Edinburgh: Blackwood, pp. 811, 1933.
27 See the Introduction to Boucher, D. The Scottish Idealists, Exeter:
Imprint Academic, 2004; Muirhead, J. H. The Platonic Tradition; James
Hutchison Stirling, The Secret of Hegel: Being the Hegelian System in
Origin, Principle, Form, and Matter, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1898,
second edition; first edition 1865.
28 Stirling, J. H. The Secret of Hegel, p. 85.
29 Muirhead relating Andrew Seths comments in The Platonic Tradition,
p. 170.
30 Greenleaf, W. H. Oakeshotts Philosophical Politics, London: Longmans,
p. 1, 1966.
31 Ferreira, P. Stirling, James Hutchinson (18201909), Dictionary of
Nineteenth Century British Philosophers, W. J. Mander and Alan P. F.
Sell (eds), Bristol: Thoemmes, Vol. 2, p. 1082, 2002.
32 Flint, R. Vico, Edinburgh: Blackwell, p. 3, 1891.
33 Jones, H. and Muirhead, J. H. The Life and Philosophy of Edward Caird,
Glasgow: Maclehose, Jackson and Co., p. 23, 1921.
34 Jones, H. Old Memories, London: Hodder and Stoughton, p. 94, 1922.
35 Richter, M. The Politics of Conscience: T. H. Green and his Age, Bristol:
Thoemmes, p. 71, 1996.
36 Green, T. H. The Works of T. H. Green, Vol. III, London: Longmans,
Green, 1888, pp. i, 371 and W. R. Sorley, A History of English Philosophy,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 288, 1937.
37 Muirhead, J. H. (ed.), Contemporary British Philosophy, London:
Macmillan, dedication page, 1925.
38 See Muirhead, J. H. (ed.), Bernard Bosanquet and his Friends: Letters
Illustrating the Sources and the Development of his Philosophical
Opinions, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1935.
39 Smith, J. A. Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality
of Self-Consciousness in Contemporary British Philosophy (second
series), J. H. Muirhead (ed.), London: George Allen and Unwin,
pp. 22544, 1925.
40 Gibbins, J. and Grote, J. Cambridge University and the Development of
Victorian Thought, Exeter: Imprint Academic, p. 410, 2007.
41 Sorley, W. R. The Historical Method, in A. Seth and R. B. Haldane
(eds), Essays in Philosophical Criticism, p. 125.
42 Sorley, W. R. The Moral Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 12640, 1911.
43 Oakeshott, M. Rationalism in Politics, Indianapolis: Liberty Press, p. 45,
1991.
44 See, for example, Sorley, W. R. On the Ethics of Naturalism, Edinburgh
and London: Blackwood, 1885, and Recent Tendencies in Ethics,
Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1904.

157

Notes

45 McTaggart, J. M. E. Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, Syllabus

of a course of lectures delivered in Trinity College in Cambridge, second edition 1906, reprinted in 1911 and 1920. It is 29 printed pages
with the argument of each topic presented in numbered paragraphs.
Michael Oakeshotts copy is heavily annotated by him. Also see J. M. E.
McTaggart, Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, in Philosophical
Studies by McTaggart and edited by S. V. Keeling, New York: Books for
Libraries, 1966: first edition, 1934.
46 Oakeshott, M. Notes Volume III, August 1922, Oakeshott Papers, The
British Library of Political Science, 29, quoting page 242 of Jones, H.
A Faith That Enquires, London, Macmillan, 1922.
47 Oakeshott, M. Notebook IV, 2 July 1923, Oakeshott Papers, The British
Library of Political Science, 1617.
48 Review of The Life and Philosophy of Edward Caird in the Hibbert
Journal, October 1922.
49 See, for example, Podoksik, E. In Defence of Modernity: Vision and
Philosophy in Michael Oakeshott, Exeter: Imprint Academic, p. 1016, 2003.
Collingwood, R. G. An Essay on Philosophical Method, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1933; Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1933; and Collingwood, R. G. Speculum
Mentis: or the Map of Knowledge, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924.
50 Ritchie, D. G. Ethical Democracy: Evolution and Democracy in
D. Boucher (ed.), The British Idealists, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 6893, 1997.
51 Wittgenstein, L. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, London: Routledge,
Kegan Paul, 1960, pp. 4, 112.
52 Sorley, W. R. Recent Tendencies in Ethics, p. 83. Sorley suggests:
according to it the facts dealt with by the natural sciences are the
only reality which is knowable; mans nature is part of these and has to
be adapted to them, and there is nothing further with which it can be
brought into relation.
53 See Ruse, M. The Darwinian Paradigm: Essays on Its History, Philosophy
and Religious Implications, London: Routledge, p. 11, 1993.
54 Ruse, M. Natural Selection in The Origin of Species, Studies in History
and Philosophy of Science, 1, pp. 31151, 1972.
55 Burrow, J. W. Evolution and Society: A Study in Victorian Social Theory,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 20, 100, 1966.
56 Darwin added an historical sketch of his precursors to the third edition
of The Origin of Species, 1862. He expanded upon the sketch in subsequent editions.
57 Baillie, J. B. The Individual and his World, in J. H. Muirhead (ed.),
Contemporary British Philosophy, first series, London: George Allen
and Unwin, p. 17, 1924.
58 Sorely, W. R. Recent Tendencies in Ethics, Edinburgh: Blackwood, p. 34,
1904.
59 Spencer, H. The Principles of Ethics, Indianapolis: Liberty Press, Vol. 1,
p. 7, 1978, [first published in 1893].

158

Notes

60 Modern opponents such as F. de Waal, basing their arguments on Kant,

want to argue that nature and humanity are different in kind and that
different forms of explanation are applicable. Primates and Philosophers:
How Morality Evolved, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
pp. 11617, 2006.
61 See Howard, J. Darwin, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 6, 1982; and
George, W. Darwin, London, Fontana, p. 7, 1982.
62 In The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, London:
Murray, 1888, Darwin describes the Feugians in the following terms:
They possessed hardly any arts, and like wild animals lived on what
they could catch; they had no government, and were merciless to everyone not of their own small tribe. p. 619.
63 Desmond, A. and Moore, J. Darwin, London: Michael Joseph, pp. 468
69, 1992.
64 Hull, D. L. Darwins Science and Victorian Philosophy of Science in M.
J. S. Hodge and G. Radick (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Darwin,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Barry G. Gale has argued
that when Darwin published The Origin of Species his evidence in support
of his theories was no more substantial than that of the Creationists.
Evolution Without Evidence: Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species,
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1982. Darwin, C. The Origin
of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favoured
Races in the Struggle for Life, edited by J. W. Burrow, Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1985: First published by John Murray, 1859.
65 Richards, R. A. Darwins Philosophical Impact in D. Moyar (ed.),
The Routledge Companionto Nineteenth Century Philosophy, London:
Routledge, p. 471, 2010.
66 Clark, R. E. D. Darwin: Before and After, Exeter: Paternoster, p. 39,
1971.
67 Darwin, C. Origin of Species, pp. 45859.
68 Dawkins, R. The Blind Watchmaker, London: Penguin, new edition,
2006.
69 Paley, W. Natural Theology, Vol. IV, Works, London: George Cowie,
1837. The volume was first published in 1802.
70 Hofstadter, R. The Vogue of Spencer from Chapter 2 of Darwinism
in American Thought (1955). Reprinted in Darwin (Norton Critical
Edition), P. Appleman (ed.), New York: Norton, pp. 389410, 1979.
71 Jones, H. The Misuse of Metaphors in the Human Sciences in Working
Faith of the Social Reformer, London: Macmillan, p. 44, 1910. PringlePattison, A. S. Life and Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, The Quarterly
Review, 200, pp. 24142, 1904; and Bosanquet, B. Socialism and Natural
Selection in D. Boucher (ed.), The British Idealists, pp. 5067.
72 Ritchie, D. G. Darwin and Hegel With Other Philosophical Studies, London:
Swan Sonnenschein, pp. 327, 1893.
73 Ritchie, D. G. Ethical Democracy: Evolution and Democracy in
D. Boucher (ed.), The British Idealists, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, p. 73.

159

Notes

74 Ritchie, D. G. Darwinism and Politics, London: Swan Sonnenschein,

pp. 100101. Also see pp. 13132, 1901.
75 Kuhn, T. S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1996, third revised edition.
76 See Boucher D. and Vincent, A. A Radical Hegelian: The Political and
Social Philosophy of Henry Jones, Cardiff: University of Wales Press,
Chapter 4, 1992.
77 Darwin, C. Origin of Species, p. 458.
78 Spencer, H. The Principles of Ethics, Indianapolis: Liberty Press, Vol. I,
p. 40, 1978 [first published 1893].
79 In maintaining that all the races of man are descended from a common stock, for example, Darwin refers us to Huxley for substantiation.
Darwin, C. The Descent of Man, p. 176.
80 Huxley, T. H. Natural Rights and Political Rights, The Nineteenth
Century, 25, pp. 17980, 1890.
81 Huxley, T. H. Evolution and Ethics, in Evolution and Ethics:
T. H. Huxleys Evolution and Ethics with New Essays on its Victorian
Sociobiological Context, J. Paradis and G. C. Williams (eds), New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, p. 132, 1989.
82 Sorley, W. R. Recent Tendencies in Ethics, p. 47.
83 Huxley, T. H. Evolution and Ethics, note 20.
84 Jones, H. Faith That Enquires, p. 95.
85 Jones, H. Idealism as a Practical Creed, Glasgow: Maclehose, p. 29, 1909.
Elsewhere he argues that the power of the idea of evolution has transfigured the world. Jones, H. The Working Faith of the Social Reformer,
London: Macmillan, p. 36, 1910.
86 Bosanquet, B. Socialism and Natural Selection, p. 57.
87 Jones, H. Is the Order of Nature Opposed to the Moral Life? An
Inaugural Address, Glasgow: Maclehose, pp. 2630, 1894.
88 Ritchie, D. Darwinism and Politics, p. 115.
89 Seth, G. Hegelianism and Personality, p. 89.
90 See Ritchie, D. Darwin and Hegel, p. 47.
91 Caird, E. The Evolution of Religion, Glasgow: Maclehose, Vol. I,
p. 45, 1899.
92 Ritchie, D. G. The Principles of State Interference, second edition,
London: Swan Sonnenschein, p. 44, 1896.
93 Caird, E. The Critical Philosophy of Kant, Glasgow: Maclehose, Vol. I,
p. 35, 1889.
94 Caird, E. Evolution of Religion, Vol. 1 p. x. Cf. 245 and 27.
95 Jones, H. A Faith that Enquires, p. 98.
96 See, Williams, B. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, London: Harper
Collins, p. 174, 1993. This argument forms an important theme of his
whole book.
97 Green, T. H. Prolegomena to Ethics, 317.
98 Murdoch, I. Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, Middlesex: Penguin
Books, p. 47, 1993.
99 Sidgwick, H. Methods of Ethics, 7th edition preface, London: Macmillan,
pp. xixxx, 1907.
160

Notes

100 The term sleek and tame comes from D. G. Ritchie. Ritchie commented in his review of Sidgwicks Elements of Politics (although it
applies equally to the Methods of Ethics) that it was much more than
we might expect from an end of the century Blackstone, or from an
English Hegel, showing the rationality of the existing order of things,
with only a few modest proposals of reform. Ritchie, D. G. A Review
of The Elements of Politics, International Journal of Ethics, 2, p. 255,
1892.
101 See Collini S. et al., That Noble Science of Politics, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, p. 294, 1983. Sidgwick would, in fact,
probably still be partly right today about utilitarianism.
102 See Collingwood, R. G. The New Leviathan, revised edition, D. Boucher
(ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
103 Bernard Williams comments on this that utilitarianism assumes the
mind, before any experience is empty it involves elaborate and implausible explanations about evolution and human learning, Williams, B.
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, p. 106.
104 Bradley, F. H. Mr Sidgwicks Hedonism, in Collected Essays Vol. 1,
Oxford: Clarendon, p. 95, 1935.
105 Bradley obviously enjoyed this quote from Sir James Fitzjames Stephens:
If I wanted to make you happy, which I do not, I should do so by pampering to your vices, which I will not. Ethical Studies, p. 105.
106 Stephen, L. Ethics and the Struggle for Existence, Contemporary
Review, 64, p. 165, 1893.
107 See Mulhall, S. and Swift, A. second edition, Liberals and Communita
rians, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
108 Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies, p. 171.
109 Hegel, G. W. F. Philosophy of Right, 146, p. 190.
110 Hegel, G. W. F. Philosophy of Right, 148, p. 191.

Chapter 2
1 Jones, H. Idealism and Politics, in two parts, part II, Contemporary
Review, 42, p. 743, 1907.
2 Jones, H. Idealism and Politics, p. 749.
3 Joachim, H. H. The Nature of Truth, second edition, edited by R. G.
Collingwood, London: Oxford University Press, 1939.
4 Collingwood, R. G. An Autobiography, with an Introduction by Stephen
Toulmin, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 2943, 1978. Also see
Collingwood, R. G. An Essay on Metaphysics, new revised edition edited
by Rex Martin, Oxford: Clarendon Press, part I, Metaphysics, 1998.
5 Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 9th edition, p. 127, 1969.
6 Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, p. 26.
7 Collingwood, R. G. The Idea of History, revised edited by W. J. van der
Dussen Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 215, 1993.
8 Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality, p. 321.
161

Notes

9 Bradley, F. H. Essays on Truth and Reality, Oxford: Clarendon Press,

p. 239, 1968, first published 1914.
10 Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, p. 59. Also see Bradley, Truth
and Reality, p. 215; and T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, pp. 1660, 1907.
11 Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality, p. 434.
12 Bradley, F. H. Truth and Reality, p. 235; and Appearance and Reality, pp.
43940.
13 Hegel, G. W. F. Elements of the Philosophy of Right, A. W. Wood, (ed.)
and translated by H. B. Nisbet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991.
14 Jones, H. Idealism as a Practical Creed, Glasgow: Maclehose, 1909.
15 Collingwood, R. G. An Autobiography, pp. 14667.
16 Hobhouse, L. T. The Metaphysical Theory of the State, London: Allen
and Unwin, 1951. First published in 1918.
17 See Vincent, A. The Individual in Hegelian Thought Idealistic Studies,
XII, 2, pp. 15668, 1982.
18 Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality, pp. 46465.
19 Bradley, F. H. The Principles of Logic, second edition with commentary
and terminal essays, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932, p. 656. Cf. Sweet,
Absolute Idealism and Finite Individuality, Indian Philosophical
Quarterly, Vol. XXIV, No 4, 1997.
20 Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies, second edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
pp. 16667 and 173, 1928.
21 Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality, p. 217. Cf. Bernard Bosanquet,
The Value and Destiny of the Individual, London: Macmillan, p. 69, 1912.
22 Bosanquet, B. Psychology of the Moral Self, London: Macmillan, p. 95,
1897.
23 Jones, H. The Philosophy of Martineau, London: Macmillan, pp. 201,
1905.
24 Jones, H. Idealism as a Practical Creed, p. 263.
25 Published as H. Wildon Carr (ed.), Life and finite individuality: Two
symposia. I and II, London: Williams and Norgate, 1918.
26 Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, pp. 26874.
27 Seth, for example, objected to Absolute Idealisms unification of
consciousness in a single Self. Seth, A. Hegelianism and Personality,
Edinburgh: Blackwood, p. 215, 1888.
28 Seth, A. Scottish Philosophy, p. 221.
29 Seth, A. Hegelianism and Personality, p. 215.
30 Pringle-Pattison, A. S. The Idea of God in the Light of recent Philosophy,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 189, 1917. [In 1898, to meet the
condition for inheriting an estate, Andrew Seth changed his name to
Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison].
31 Seth, A. The Idea of God, p. 259. Cf. G. Watts Cunningham, The
Idealistic Argument in Recent British and American Philosophy, New
York: Century, pp. 16263, 1933.
32 Sturt, H. Preface to Personal Idealism, H. Sturt (ed.), London:
Macmillan, p. vi, 1902.
162

Notes

33 Cunningham, G. W. The Idealistic Argument, p. 165.

34 Seth, A. Philosophy as Criticism of the Categories, Essays in Philosophical
Criticism, A. Seth and R. B. Haldane (eds), London: Longmans Green,
p. 38, 1883.
35 Pringle-Pattison, A. S. The Idea of God in the Light of Recent
Philosophy, Oxford, Clarendon Press, p. 266, 1920. Also see, Rashdall,
H. Personality, Human and Divine, Personal Idealism, H. Sturt (ed.),
London: Macmillan, p. 372, 1902.
36 Seth, A. A New Theory of the Absolute, in Mans Place in the Cosmos,
Edinburgh: Blackwood, pp. 129225, 1897.
37 Boyce Gibson, W. R. A Peace Policy for Idealists, The Hibbert Journal,
5, p. 409, 19061907.
38 Sturt, H. (ed.), Personal Idealism: Philosophical Essays, London: Macmillan,
p. x, 1902.
39 McTaggart, J. M. E. An Ontological Idealism in Philosophical Studies,
p. 273.
40 McTaggart, J. M. E. The Individualism of Value in Philosophical
Studies. Also cited in Coates, Jr., Oakeshott and his Contemporaries,
p. 108, from the copy found among Oakeshotts unpublished papers.
McTaggart differs from fellow Personalists such as Pringle-Pattison and
Rashdall in that he had very little sympathy for religion.
41 See Jones, H. and Muirhead, J. H. The Life and Philosophy of Edward
Caird, Glasgow: Maclehose, Jackson and Co., Chapter viii, 1921.
42 Caird, E. Idealism and the Theory of Knowledge (1903), in Collected
Works of Edward Caire, C. Tyler (ed.), Vol. 12, Miscellaneous Writings,
Bristol: Thoemmes, p. 101, 1999.
43 Caird, E. Hegel, Edinburgh: Blackwood, p. 138, 1903.
44 See Collingwood, R. G. An Essay on Metaphysics.
45 Caird, E. Hegel, p. 55.
46 Caird, E. Metaphysics, Essays on Literature and Philosophy, Vol. 2,
Glasgow: Maclehose, p. 442, 1892.
47 Seth, A. From Kant to Hegel, p. 81.
48 Seth, A. Scottish Philosophy, p. 203.
49 See for an exemplification Mitchell, W. Moral Obligation in The
Scottish Idealists: Selected Philosophical Writings, D. Boucher (ed.),
Exeter: Imprint Academic, pp. 14158, 2004.
50 Oakeshott, M. Hobbes on Civil Association, Oxford: Blackwell,
p. 78, 1975. Also see D. Boucher, Oakeshott and the History of
Political Thought, Collingwood and British Idealism Studies, Vol. 13:2,
2007.
51 Oakeshott, M. Hobbes on Civil Association, pp. 1478. Also see Tregenza, I.
Michael Oakeshott on Hobbes, Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2003.
52 Jones, H. Aims of Philosophy, p. 162.
53 Quoted in Kluback, W. Wilhelm Diltheys Philosophy of History,
New York: Columbia University press, p. 27, 1956.
54 Collingwood, R. G. Philosophical Method, p.11.
55 Bosanquet, B. The Essentials of Logic, London: Macmillan,
p. 166, 1903.
163

Notes

56 Oakeshott, M. The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence,

Politica 3, p. 346, 1938.
57 Stebbing, L. S. The Method of Analysis in Metaphysics, Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, 33, p. 93, 19321933.
58 Take McTaggart, for example, who maintained that metaphysics rests
upon certain assumptions, but unlike the natural sciences, does not
make them uncritically, see McTaggart, J. M. E. Introduction to the
Study of Philosophy, p. 184.
59 Moore, G. E. The Nature and Reality of Objects of Perception, in
Philosophical Studies, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, p. 3196,
1922.
60 Moore, G. E. Proof of an External World, Proceedings of the British
Academy, 25, pp. 272300, 1939.
61 Joachim, H. H. Nature of Truth, p. vii.
62 Joachim, H. H. Nature of Truth, p. 176.
63 Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, p. 11.
64 Bosanquet, B. The Meeting of Extremes in Contemporary Philosophy,
London: Macmillan, 1921.
65 For an excellent account of Collingwoods engagement with Realism see
Junichi Kasuga, The Formation of R. G. Collingwoods Early Criticism of
Realism, unpublished Ph.D., Cardiff University, 2010.
66 Collingwood, R. G. An Essay on Metaphysics, pp. 16271.
67 Boyce Gibson, W. R. A Peace Policy for Idealists, The Hibbert Journal,
5, p. 407, 19061907.
68 McTaggart, J. M. E. Dare to Be Wise, in Philosophical Studies, 38.
69 Russell, B. Our Knowledge of the External World, 17. Cf. 26, London:
George Allen and Unwin, 1914.
70 McTaggart, J. M. E. Dare to be Wise, 40.
71 Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies, second edition, Oxford, Clarendon Press,
p. 193, 1927: first edition 1874.

Chapter 3
1 Bradley, F. H. The Presuppositions of Critical History (1874), reprinted
in Collected Essays, Vol. I, p. 17, 21 and 45, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1935.
2 Bradley, F. H. Presuppositions, p. 13,
3 Bradley, F. H. Presuppositions, p. 45. Collingwood accuses Bradley of
undermining his Idealism by introducing an element of naturalism in
positing his criterion of historical truth. See R. G. Collingwood, The
Idea of History, revised edition, W. J. van der Dussen (ed.), Oxford:
Clarendon Press, pp. 13441, 1993.
4 Bosanquet, B. Philosophical Theory of the State, London: Macmillan, p.
2, 1899.
5 Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, p. 2, 1933.
6 Jones, H. A Faith That Enquires, London: Macmillan, p. 95, 1922.

164

Notes

7 Notes taken by Thomas Jones of Henry Jones Moral Philosophy

Lectures (Pass), Vol. II, p. 3. National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth,
18971898.
8 Jones, H. Faith That Enquires, p. 93.
9 For a brief summary in his own words see Popper, K. Unended Quest:
An Intellectual Autobiography, London: Routledge, 2002.
10 Jones, H. Faith That Enquires, p. 82.
11 Jones, H. Faith That Enquires, p. 82. T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions, Chicago: Chicago University Press, pp. 11135, 1970;
R. G. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics, revised edition, Martin
R. (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 48, 1998.
12 Bosanquet, B. The Philosophical Theory of the State, London: Macmillan,
p. 77, 1965.
13 Caird, E. The Problem of Philosophy in D. Boucher (ed.), The Scottish
Idealists: Selected Philosophical Writings, Exeter: Imprint Academic,
pp. 267, 2004.
14 McTaggart, J. M. E. Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, p. 183.
15 McTaggart, J. M. E. Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, p. 184.
16 Collingwood, R. G. Speculum Mentis: or the Map of Knowledge, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, p. 36, 1924.
17 Collingwood, R. G. Speculum Mentis, p. 15.
18 Collingwood, R. G. Speculum Mentis, p. 316.
19 Bosanquet, B. Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 2.
20 Oakeshott, M. Hobbes on Civil Association, Oxford: Blackwell, p. 5,
1975.
21 Hegel, G. W. F. The Philosophy of Mind, trans. William Wallace,
Section 377, Zusatz, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971.
22 Bosanquet, B. Philosophical Theory of the State, pp. 23.
23 Gentile, G. The Theory of Mind as Pure Act, translated by H. Wildon
Carr, London: Macmillan, p. 33, 1922.
24 Harris, H. H. Introduction to G. Gentile, The Genesis and Structure of
Society, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, p. 18, 1960.
25 Gentile, G. Theory of Mind as Pure Act, p. 215.
26 Collingwood, R. G. Can the New Idealism Dispense with Mysticism?
in Faith and Reason: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion L. Rubinoff
(ed.), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 275, 1968.
27 Collingwood, R. G. Can the New Idealism Dispense with Mysticism?
in Faith and Reason, p. 274.
28 Collingwood, R. G. Notes Towards a Metaphysic (19334) in The
Principles of History and other writings in the philosophy of history,
W. H. Dray and W. J. van der Dussen (eds), Oxford: Oxford University
Press, p. 127, 1999.
29 Collingwood, R. G. Notes Towards a Metaphysic, p. 12829.
30 See Croce, B. What is Living and What is Dead of the Philosophy of
Hegel, translated by D. Ainslie, New York: Russell and Russell, 1969,
and Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept, translated by D. Ainslie,
London: Macmillan, 1917.

165

Notes

31 Collingwood, R. G. An Essay on Philosophical Method, Oxford:

Clarendon Press, p. 4651, 1977.
32 Collingwood, R. G. Speculum Mentis, p. 84.
33 Collingwood, R. G. Essay on Philosophical Method, p. 173.
34 Collingwood, R. G. Essay on Philosophical Method, p. 89.
35 Collingwood, R. G. Outlines of a Philosophy of Art, reprinted in Essays
in the Philosophy of Art, A. Donagan (ed.), Bloomington, Indiana:
Indiana University Press, p. 50, 1964.
36 Collingwood, R. G. Speculum Mentis, pp. 102107, 13438, 16976,
22131, and 304305. He was later to modify his views positing
Greco-Roman scientific thinking as the theoretical basis of utilitarian action; Renaissance scientific thinking as the basis of regularian
action; and nineteenth and twentieth-century historical thinking as the
theoretical reason unpinning the practical reason of duty. See The New
Leviathan.
37 Collingwood, R. G. Outlines of a Philosophy of Art, pp. 14546.
38 Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
p. 441, 1930.
39 Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality, pp. 43940.
40 Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality, pp. 404405, 429.
41 Bradley, F. H. Essays on Truth and Reality, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
p. 235 and pp. 25254, 1914. Cf. Bradley, J. review of On History and
Other Essays, by Oakeshott M. in The Heythrop Journal, XXVII, p. 361,
1986.
42 Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality, p. 433 and 440.
43 Bradley, F. H.Appearance and Reality, p. 404.
44 Bradley, F. H.Appearance and Reality, p. 6.
45 Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, p. 84 and 87.
46 Oakeshott, M. Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, new and expanded
edition, T. Fuller (ed.), Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991.
47 Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, pp. 86168.
48 Oakeshott, M. On Human Conduct, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 17,
1975.
49 Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, pp. 312.
50 Oakeshott, M. The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence Politica
III, p. 204, 1938. Cf. Oakeshott, M. History and the Social Sciences,
The Institute of Sociology, The Social Sciences, London: Le Play House
Press, p. 72, 1936. See Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, p. 5 and
Oakeshott M. , On History and Other Essays, Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
p. 2 and 26, 1983.
51 Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, p. 324.
52 See Oakeshott, M. The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of
Mankind, in Rationalism in Politics, pp. 488541.
53 Rorty, R. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 15657, 159, 163, 170171, 318, 322, 37173, 37778, 386 and 38994,
1980.
54 Oakeshott, M. Experience and Its Modes, pp. 29798.

166

Notes

55 All of the modes are now different ways of imagining rather than of
experiencing, which conveyed too passive a view of understanding.
56 Oakeshott, M. Rationalism in Politics, Indianapolis: Liberty Press,
p. 503, 1991.
57 Oakeshott, M. Rationalism in Politics, p. 527.
58 Collingwood, R. G. The Principles of Art, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1938.
59 Oakeshott, M. Rationalism in Politics, p. 514. Oakeshott clearly thought
the Principles of Art a remarkable book. In a letter to Collingwood,
dated, 18 May, 1938, Oakeshott wrote: I have just finished your
Principles of Art and I would like to tell you with what excitement,
delight and admiration I have read it. Sense at last in the philosophy
of art; you have performed a miracle. Please accept my deepest thanks.
Letter in the possession of Mrs Teresa Smith, Collingwoods daughter.
60 Collingwood, R. G. Notes on Historiography written on a voyage to the
East Indies. Collingwood ms., DEP 13, 21, Bodleian Library, Oxford
University. Cf. Collingwood, R. G. The Idea of History, p. 218 and
Collingwood, R. G. An Autobiography, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 107,
1939.
61 Skinner, Q. The Rise of, Challenge to and Prospects for a Collingwoodian
Approach to the History of Political Thought in D. Castiglione and
I. Hampsher-Monk (eds), The History of Political Thought in National
Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 185, 2001 and
Interpretation, Rationality and Truth, in Skinner, Q. Visions of Politics,
I, Regarding Method, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 47,
2002.
62 Collingwood, R. G. Autobiography, p. 114. Cf., p. 106. This is not to suggest that re-enactment is a passive process; it is a labour of active and
therefore critical thinking. Idea of History, p. 215.
63 Oakeshott, M. On History, p. 28.
64 Oakeshott, M. On Human Conduct, p. 57.
65 Oakeshott, M. On History, p. 24.
66 Oakeshott, M. Rationalism in Politics, p. 154. Cf. The historian is the
maker of events; they have a meaning for those who participated in them,
and he will not speak of them in the same way as they spoke of them.
M. Oakeshott, Mr. Carrs First Volume, Cambridge Journal, IV p. 347,
(19501951).
67 Oakeshott, M. On History, p. 64 and 93; and Oakeshott, Rationalism in
Politics, p. 164.
68 Oakeshott, M. Experience and its Modes, p. 334.
69 See for example, Grant, R. Oakeshott, London: Claridge Press, pp. 65
70, 1990; Gerencser, S. The Skeptics Oakeshott, London: Macmillan,
especially pp. 3351, 2000; Nardin, T. The Philosophy of Oakeshott,
Pennsylvania: Penn State University, pp. 445, 2001; Franco, P.
Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction, New Haven: Yale University Press,
p. 125, 2004.
70 Oakeshott, M. On Human Conduct, pp. 256 and 33.

167

Notes

Chapter 4
1 In more recent years, since the 1980s, there has been a recovery of the
negative stance in various forms of libertarianism and neo-liberalism.
2 Green, T. H. Works of Thomas Hill Green, Vol. III, London: Longmans,
Green, p. 375, 1888.
3 On Bosanquets work see Vincent, A. The Poor Law Reports of 1909
and the Social Theory of the Charity Organization Society, Victorian
Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3, 1984.
4 Ritchie, D. G. The Principles of State Interference, London: Swan
Sonnenschein, p. 138, 1888.
5 Green, T. H. Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation: and other
writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 143, 1986.
6 Hobbes, T. Leviathan C. B. Macpherson (ed.), Middlesex: Penguin,
p. 225, 1968.
7 Hobbes, T. Leviathan, Macpherson (ed.), pp. 22728.
8 In his Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation.
9 Green, T. H. Lectures, 102.
10 Green, T. H. Lectures, 84.
11 Green, T. H. Lectures, 689.
12 Bradley, F. H. Collected Essays, Vol.II, pp. 44445, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1935.
13 Hegel, G. W. F. Elements of the Philosophy of Right, translated by
E. B. Nisbet, A. W. Wood (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4, addition, 1991.
14 Bosanquet, B. (ed.) Reality of the General Will, Aspects of the Social
Problem, London: Macmillan, p. 322, 1895.
15 Bosanquet, B. Reality, p. 324.
16 Bosanquet, B. Reality, p. 325.
17 Collingwood, R. G. New Leviathan, p. 13, 25.
18 See Nicholson, P. Collingwoods New Leviathan Then and Now,
Collingwood Studies, I, p. 164, 1994.
19 Collingwood, R. G. New Leviathan, 20. pp. 4953.
20 Hegel, G. W. F. Philosophy of Right, 146 and 148.
21 Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies, p. 166, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962.
22 Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies, p. 193.
23 Bradleys view here reflects closely Hegels own conception of philosophy, see for example, Hegel, Philosophy of Right, preface, pp. 1011. The
next clear and forceful statement of this position, in the British Idealist
tradition, can be found in Michael Oakeshott (no doubt influenced by
Bradley, as much as by Hegel), who also declared unequivocally that philosophy, or any theoretical mode such as history or science, is incapable of
offering injunctions for practical conduct, see Oakeshott, M. Experience
and Its Modes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933.
24 Bosanquet, B. in his ethical writings, argues that moral values are to
be realized in and through lived experience. One must live and become
aware of the problems and intricacies of living before making any full
sense of ethics. As he comments, if you cut yourself loose from the
168

Notes

25

26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38

39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46

lived process you would be nothing. The process of living is one of

self-moulding whose being shall incorporate what it can of value.
To work with values and to mould oneself is not a deductive process
from ethical first principles. This squares with Bradleys argument. A
moral life, if anything, is inductive. No rules precondition ones actions.
The more precise analogy for ethics, for Bosanquet, is with art, which
sounds mysteriously like Foucaults care of the self. The self-moulding
and the role of ethics are thus conceived as artistic creation ex nihilo,
see Bosanquet, B. Some Suggestions in Ethics, London: Macmillan,
p. 158, 1918.
Lamont, W. D. in articulating Greens conception of the role of moral
philosophy, states the point quite precisely: for Green the moral philosopher is not to create not even to advocate moral ideals, but simply to understand them, analysing their nature and demonstrating their
implications, Lamont, W. D. Introduction to Greens Moral Philosophy,
London: George Allen and Unwin, p. 20, 1934. Green does however
give a much stronger emphasis to the guiding role of philosophy than
Bradley.
Green, T. H. Prolegomena to Ethics, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 310, 1907.
Green, T. H. Prolegomena, 311.
Green, T. H. Prolegomena, 317.
This idea is also central to Greens historical writing, for example his
Four Lectures on the English Commonwealth, Green, Works, Vol. III,
pp. 277364.
Green, T. H. Prolegomena, 317.
Green, T. H. Prolegomena, 328.
Green, T. H. Prolegomena, 311.
Oakeshott, M. On Human Conduct, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 63, 1975.
Oakeshott, M. Human Conduct, p. 64.
Oakeshott, M. Human Conduct, p. 65.
Oakeshott, M. Human Conduct, p. 70.
Sidgwick, H. Critical Notice of Ethical Studies, Mind, Vol. 1, p. 548,
1876.
See, for example, Vincent, A. Metaphysics and Ethics in the Philosophy
of T. H. Green in Cookson M. D. and Mander B. (eds), T.H Green
Ethics, Metaphysics and Political Philosophy, Oxford, Clarendon Press,
2006.
Green, T. H. Prolegomena, 285 and 286.
As Green comments the only good which is really common to all who
may pursue it, is that which consists in the universal will to be good
Prolegomena, 244.
Green, T. H. Prolegomena, 270.
See Carter, M. T.H. Green and the Development of Ethical Socialism
(Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2003).
Green, T. H. Lectures, 26.
Green, T. H. Lectures, 21.
Green, T. H. Lectures, 25.
Green, T. H. Lectures, 26.
169

Notes

47 Ritchie, D. G. Natural Rights, London: Swan Sonnenschein, p. 270,

1894.
48 Ritchie, D. G. Natural Rights, p. 103.
49 Such individualism was also seen as potentially dangerous since ultimately its sheer vacuity provided no limitations to conduct. It appeared
innocuous, but it was not. As Hegel indicated, the terror of the French
Revolution, which rent asunder every political and social bond, was
rooted in such a thin individualism, see for example, Jones, H. The Social
Organism, in A. Seth and R. B. Haldane (eds), Essays in Philosophical
Criticism, London: Longmans, p. 192, 1888.
50 Jones, H. The Present Attitude of Reflective Thought Towards Religion,
Hibbert Journal, I and II, I, p. 229, (19021903 and 19031904).
51 See Green, T. H. Prolegomena, 234ff. For studies of Greens overall
contribution, see Vincent A. and Plant, R. Philosophy Politics and
Citizenship, Oxford: Blackwell, 1984, Carter, T. H. Green and the
Development of Ethical Socialism, Wempe, B. T. H. Greens Theory
of Positive Freedom, Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2004, Leighton, D. P.
The Greenian Moment: T. H. Green and Political Argument in Victorian
Britain, Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2004, de Sanctis, A. The Puritan
Democracy of Thomas Hill Green, Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2005
and Colin Tyler, The Metaphysics of Self-Realisation and Freedom:
Part 1 of The Liberal Socialism of Thomas Hill Green, Exeter: Imprint
Academic, 2010.
52 Bosanquet, B. (ed.) The Duties of Citizenship, in Aspects of the Social
Problem, pp. 56.

Chapter 5
1 See Jones, H. The Ethical Demand of the Present Political Situation,
The Hibbert Journal, p. 539, 19091910.
2 Toynbee, A. Are Radicals Socialist? in Lectures on the Industrial
Revolution in England, Popular Addresses, Notes and Other Fragments,
Newton Abbott: David and Charles Reprint, p. 203, 1969.
3 Toynbee, A. Are Radicals Socialist? p. 219.
4 Green, T. H. Works, Vol. III, London: Longmans, p. 367, 1888.
5 Caird E. Individualism and Socialism: Inaugural Lecture to the Civic
Society of Glasgow, Glasgow: Maclehose, p. 9, 1897.
6 See Mackenzie, J. S. An Introduction to Social Philosophy, Glasgow,
Maclehose, p. 323, 1985. Bosanquet, B. The Antithesis between
Individualism and Socialism Philosophically Considered, in The Civilization
of Christendom, London: Swan Sonnenschein, pp. 30457, 1899.
7 See Vincent, A. New Ideology for Old? Political Quarterly, 69, No. 1,
1998.
8 See Vincent, A. The New Liberalism in Britain 18801914, The
Australian Journal of Politics and History, 36, 3, 1990; A. Simhony and
D. Weinstein (eds), The New Liberalism: Reconciling Liberty and
Community, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
170

Notes

9 Green, T. H. Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract, in Works

of T. H. Green, Vol. III, 371.
10 Haldane, R. B. An Autobiography, London: Hodder and Stoughton,
p. 213, 1929.
11 All quotations from Haldane, R. B. Autobiography, pp. 21314.
12 Bosanquet, H. The Standard of Life, London: Macmillan, p. 90, 1898.
13 Jones, H. The Corruption of the Citizenship of the Working Man
Hibbert Journal X, p. 163, 191112.
14 Bosanquet, B. Some Suggestions in Ethics, London: Macmillan, pp.
23940, 1918.
15 Jones, H. The Obligations and Privileges of Citizenship: A Plea for the
Study of Social Science, Rice Institute Studies, VI, p. 176, 1919.
16 Admittedly Gentiles involvement was deeply tarnished by his link with
fascism.
17 See Hegel, G. W. F. The Philosophical Propaedeutic, introduction
M. George and A. Vincent (eds), Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.
18 Haldane, R.B. Autobiography, p. 301.
19 I had convinced myself that a civic university was a possible institution,
and that if called into being it would have a great moulding influence
and a high standard under the impulse of the local patriotism of the
great cities, Haldane, R. B. Autobiography, p. 140.
20 Quotes from Haldane, R. B. Universities and National Life: Three
Addresses to Students, London: John Murray, pp. 1213, 1910. There
is something of Thomas Carlyles heroes and hero-worship here.
Universities count for Haldane for what is the highest in any state.
And it is in the Universities, with their power over the mind, greater in
the end than the power of any government or any church, that we see
how the soul of the people at its highest mirrors itself, Haldane, R. B.
Universities and National Life, London: Murray, p. 31, 1910.
21 Knowledge is of many kinds, and what we have to do is to bring together
what is inherent in knowledge and the unity of its grasp . It was upon
adult education, based on this principle, that we should rely as a foundation on which we could appeal to men and women, irrespective of their
creeds or positions in society, to seek to develop this quality that was
latent within them, Haldane, R. B. Autobiography, p. 302.
22 Oakeshott, M. The Study of Politics at a University, Rationalism in
Politics and other essays, new and expanded edition, T. Fuller (ed.),
Indianapolis: Liberty Press, pp. 184218, 1991.
23 See Vincent, A. German Philosophy and British Public Policy Journal
of the History of Ideas, 68, 1, pp. 15779, 2007.
24 See Andrew Vincents German Philosophy and British Public Policy.
Haldanes prime educational interest was in the promotion of universities.
But he wanted universities to be an integral part of a coherent system of
education such as is only now beginning to develop in Britain. His vision
was of a national education system with universities at the pinnacle, permeating (as he used to say) the whole education beneath them and, through
adult education, beyond them, Ashby E. and Anderson, M. Portrait of
Haldane at Work on Education, London, Macmillan, p. xv, 1974.
171

Notes

25 See Sir Logan, D. Haldane and the University of London 1st March 1960,
London: Haldane Memorial Lecture, University of London, 1960.
26 Haldane was a friend of Canon Barnett the first warden of Toynbee
Hall, see Vincent A. and Plant, R. Philosophy Politics and Citizenship,
Chapters 7 and 8.
27 Ashby, E. and Anderson, M. Portrait of Haldane, p. 173.
28 For a fuller discussion see Boucher D. and Vincent, A. A Radical
Hegelian: The Political and Social Philosophy of Henry Jones, Cardiff:
University of Wales Press, pp. 1011, 1720, and 99109, 1993.
29 Green, T. H. Lectures, 227.
30 Green, T. H. Lectures, 228.
31 Muirhead, J. H. Reflections of Journeyman in Philosophy on the
Movements of Thought and Practice in his Time, London: George Allen
and Unwin, pp. 160161, 1942.
32 Ritchie, D. G. Principles of State Interference, London: Swan
Sonnenschein, p. 138, 1891.
33 Jones, H. The Working Faith of the Social Reformer, London: Macmillan,
p. 10, 1910.
34 Ignatieff M. The Myth of Citizenship in R. Beiner (ed.), Theorizing
Citizenship, New York: State University of New York Press, p. 67, 1995.
35 Social citizenship, for Marshall, was the phase which developed after the
civil and political citizenship, see Marshall, T. H. Citizenship and Social
Class, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950.
36 See Vincent A. and Plant, R. Philosophy Politics and Citizenship, Chapter
7.
37 Bosanquet, B. (ed.) Reality of the General Will, in Aspects of the Social
Problem, London: Macmillan, p. 322, 1895.
38 See Vincent A. The Poor Law Reports of 1909 and the Social Theory of
the Charity Organisation Society Victorian Studies, 27, 3, 1984.
39 See Urwick, E. J. A School of Sociology in C. S. Loch (ed.), Methods of
Social Advance, London: Macmillan, 1904 and Bosanquet, H. Methods
of Training in The Charity Organisation Review, p. 44, 1904.
40 Clarke, P. F. Liberals and Social Democrats, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, p. 15, 1978. For a very scholarly corrective view of Green
on temperance, see Nicholson, P. T. H. Green and Liquor Legislation
in A. Vincent (ed.), The Philosophy of T. H. Green, Aldershot: Gower,
1986.
41 Rashdall H. in C. Gore (ed.) Property: Its Rights and Duties, Historically
Philosophically and Religiously Considered, London: Macmillan, p. 57,
1915.
42 Toynbee, A. Wages and Natural Law, in Lectures on the Industrial
Revolution, p. 156.
43 As Jones says: whenever it becomes a right, [it] is due not alone nor primarily to his having said Mine, but to the State having said Thine, Jones, H.
The Working Faith of Social Reformer, London: Macmillan, p. 97.
44 Jones, H. Working Faith of Social Reformer, p. 98.
45 Jones letter to Fisher 1916, Fisher Papers MS, Bodleian Library, Oxford,
pp. 25960, 7. In another work Jones writes, It is quite true that common
172

Notes

46
47
48
49
50
51
52

53
54
55
56
57
58

ownership and common enterprise turns us into limited proprietors; but

they make us limited proprietors of indefinitely large utilities, Working
Faith of Social Reformer, p. 110.
Jones, H. The Ethical Demand of the Present Political Situation,
Hibbert Journal, p. 537, 190910.
See Gore, C. (ed.), introduction and essay by L. T. Hobhouse in Property:
Its Rights and Duties.
An idea, which seems as relevant today in 2011 after the 2008 banking
crisis as it was in 1911.
Hobhouse, L. T. Liberalism, London: Thornton Butterworth, p. 202, 1911.
See Green, T. H. Works, Vol. III, pp. 37071.
Jones, H. Idealism as a Practical Creed, Glasgow: Maclehose, p. 100, 1909.
See Samuel, H. Memoirs, London: Cresset Press, p. 25, 1945.
J. A. Hobson also commented that Free land, free travel, free power,
free credit, security, justice and education, no man is free for the
full purposes of civilized life today unless he has all these liberties,
see Hobson, J. A. The Crisis of Liberalism: New Issues of Democracy,
London: P. S. King, p. 113, 1909.
See Vincent, A. and Plant, R. Philosophy Politics and Citizenship,
pp. 736.
Haldane, R. B. The New Liberalism, The Progressive Review, Vol.1,
No. 2, pp. 13539, November 1896.
Haldane, R. B. New Liberalism, pp. 1412.
Hegel, G. W. F. The Philosophy of Right, 7.
Jones, H. The Working Faith of the Social Reformer, p. x.
Collingwood, R. G. Autobiography, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
pp.157, 1951.

Chapter 6
1 Thus incorporating the Crimean War (18541856); the unification
of both Germany (1871) and Italy (1867); the Boer Wars (18801881
and 18991902); the Russian Revolution (1917); the rise of German
Militarism and the First World War (19141918), the rise and fall of
liberal internationalism; the creation of the League of Nations (1919);
and ultimately the Second World War (19391945).
2 See Boucher D. and Vincent, A. A Radical Hegelian: The Political and
Social Philosophy of Henry Jones, Cardiff: University of Wales Press,
1992, Chapters 7 and 8. Also see Boucher, D. British Idealism, the State
and International Relations, Journal of the History of Ideas, p. 55, 1994.
3 Hegel, G. W. F. Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Translated by E. B.
Nisbet and edited by A. W. Wood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
324, 1991.
4 Hegel, G. W. F. Philosophy of Right, 336.
5 Moorefield, J. Covenants Without Swords: Idealist Liberalism and the
Spirit of Empire, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, pp. 99100,
2005.
173

Notes

6 Green, T. H. Lectures on Principles of Political Obligation, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1606, 1986.
7 Nicholson, P. Political Philosophy of the British Idealists, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 22728, 1990.
8 Bosanquet, B. Function of the State in Promoting the Unity of
Mankind, in Social and International Ideals: Being Studies in Patriotism,
London: Macmillan, p. 301, 1917.
9 Bosanquet, B. Some Suggestions in Ethics, London: Macmillan, p. 242,
1918; Functions of the State in Promoting the Unity of Mankind,
p. 301.
10 Ritchie, D. G. War and Peace, International Journal of Ethics, XI, p.
138, 141, 149, 19001901.
11 Hobhouse, L. T. Foreign Policy of Collectivism, The Economic Review, 9,
p. 215, 1899.
12 The authors have independently defended Hegel against the more
extreme views, which have attributed all of the ills of the twentieth century to him, including German Militarism. Vincent, A. The Hegelian
State and International Politics, Review of International Studies, 9,
1983; and Boucher, D. Political Theories of International Relations,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, Chapter 14, 1998.
13 Caird, E. Lay Sermons and Addresses, Glasgow: Maclehose, p. 193,
1907.
14 Bosanquet, B. Function of the State in Promoting the Unity of
Mankind, Social and International Ideals, p. 277.
15 Muirhead, J. H. Reflections by a Journeyman in Philosophy on the
Movements of Thought and Practice of his Time, London: Murray,
p. 179, 1942. Cf. Bosanquet, Patriotism in a Perfect State, p. 145.
16 See Green, T. H. Lectures, Lecture K, 157ff, Watson, J. The State in
Peace and War, Glasgow: Maclehose, pp. 24950, 1919. Bosanquet says:
Now states are dangerous to each other by reason of their biased consciences, and biased consciences come of inequality. No State can exhibit
an unperverted conscience abroad which is not bent on making itself
an equal instrument of the best life for all its members. Bosanquet, B.
Wisdom of Naamans Servants, Bosanquet, B. Social and International
Ideals, p. 309.
17 This is what J. A. Hobson suggests in his famous book on Imperialism
and L. T. Hobhouse when he contends: All virtues are like charity in
one respect they begin at home. Hobhouse, L. T. The Foreign Policy
of Collectivism, Economic Review, 9, p. 212, 1899. Cf, J. A. Hobson,
Imperialism: A Study, London: Nisbet, 1902.
18 Hetherington, H. J. W. and Muirhead, J. H. Social Purpose: A Contribution
to a Philosophy of Civic Society, London: Allen and Unwin, p. 264,
1918.
19 Hetherington H. J. W. and Muirhead, J. H. Social Purpose, p. 261.
20 Hetherington H. J. W. and Muirhead, J. H. Social Purpose, p. 262.
21 Hetherington H. J. W. and Muirhead, J. H. Social Purpose, p. 262.
22 Green, T. H. Lectures, 162.
23 Green, T. H. Lectures, 170.
174

Notes

24 Bosanquet, B. The Teaching of Patriotism in Bosanquet, Social and

International Ideals, p. 3.
25 Ritchie, D. G. The Moral Problems of War In reply to Mr J. M.
Robertson, International Journal of Ethics, 11, p. 494, 19001. Reprinted
the Collected Works of D. G. Ritchie, Vol. 6. P. Nicholson (ed.), Bristol,
Thoemmes, 1998.
26 Green, T. H. Lectures, 171.
27 Bosanquet, B. The Philosophical Theory of the State, London:
Macmillan, p. 12, 1899.
28 Caird, E. The Nation as an Ethical Ideal in Lay Sermons and Addresses,
Glasgow: Maclehose, p. 100, 1907.
29 Green, T. H. Lectures, 122.
30 Caird, E. Address on Queen Victorias Jubilee in Lay Sermons and
Addresses, Glasgow: Maclehose, p. 91, 1907.
31 Caird, E. On Queen Victorias Jubilee, p. 956.
32 Hetherington H. J. W. and Muirhead, J. H. Social Purpose, p. 264.
33 This was then reinforced by the Statute of Westminster (1931). Other
colonies in India, Africa and the Far East had a more ambiguous status.
34 Hobhouse, L. T. Democracy and Reaction, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1904.
35 Shaw, G. B. (ed.), Fabianism and the Empire: A Manifesto, London: G.
Richards, 1900.
36 Variants of such arguments appeared again in the Fabian colonial bureau
(1940) and Arthur Creech Joness Fabian Colonial Essays, (1945).
37 Muirhead, J. H. Service of the State Four Lectures on the Political
Teachings of T. H. Green, London: John Murray, p. 110, 1908.
38 Cited by Collini, S. Liberalism and Sociology: L. T. Hobhouse and Political
Argument in England 18801915, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
p. 82, 1979. For a brief account of the issues see Shannon, R. The Crisis of
Imperialism 18651915, London: Harper Collins, pp. 32337, 1976.
39 Haldane, R. B. Education and Empire: Addresses on Certain Topics of the
Day, London: Murray, p. 37, 1904.
40 Haldane, R. B. Education and Empire, p. 160.
41 Ritchie, D. G. War and Peace, International Journal of Ethics, 11, p. 164,
19001901.
42 Ritchie, D. G. Another View of the South African War, The Ethical
World, p. 20, January 13, 1900. Reprinted in Collected Worked of D. G.
Ritchie, Vol. 6.
43 Muirhead J. H. What Imperialism Means Fortnight Review, 404, n.s.,
183, 1 August 1900.
44 Caird, E. The Nation as an Ethical Idea, p. 114.
45 Muirhead J. H. and Hetherington, H. J. W. Social Purpose, pp. 2789.
46 MacCunn, J. Cosmopolitan Duties, International Journal of Ethics,
Vol. IX, p. 155, 18989.
47 Hobhouse, L. T. The Foreign Policy of Collectivism, Economic Review, 9,
p. 215, 1899.
48 Ritchie, D. G. Another View of the South African War, p. 20.
49 Ritchie, D. G. The South African War, The Ethical World, February 3,
p. 71, 1900. Reprinted in Collected Works of D. G. Ritchie, Vol. 6.
175

Notes

50 Caird, E. The Nation as an Ethical Ideal, p. 110.

51 Caird, E. The Nation as an Ethical Ideal, p. 110.
52 Crook, P. Darwinism, War and History, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, p. 3, 1994.
53 Bosanquet, B. Socialism and Natural Selection, in D. Boucher (ed.)
The British Idealists, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 55,
1997.
54 Kidd, B. Social Evolution, pp. 35, 22, 3435, 623 and 934, London:
1894. See Robert C. Bannister, Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in
Anglo-American Social Thought, Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
pp. 15058, 1989.
55 Crook, P. Darwinism, War and History, p. 47.
56 Darwin, C. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex,
London: John Murray, pp. 198200, 1871.
57 Darwin, C. Ascent of Man, pp. 218 and 224.
58 Green, T. H. Lectures, 140.
59 Green, T. H. Prolegomena to Ethics, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 207,
1899.
60 Green, T. H. Prolegomena, 250.
61 Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies, p. 205; and Bradley, F. H. Limits of
Individual and National Self-Sacrifice, Bradley, Collected Essays, Vol.
I, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 22.
62 Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies, p. 342, and Bosanquet, B. Patriotism in
a Perfect State, p. 150.
63 Jones, H. Moral Problems of the War, p. 35.
64 Bosanquet, B. Patriotism in a Perfect State, p. 149; also see in the same
text, pp. 135, 137, and 150; Function of the State in Promoting the
Unity of Mankind, pp. 288, 192, 295, and 297.
65 For a few examples see, Bradley, A. C. International Morality and
Sorley, W. R. State and Morality, both in the International Crisis: The
Theory of the State, L. Creighton et al (eds), London: Oxford University
Press, 1915; and Watson, The State in Peace and War, Glasgow:
Maclehose, pp. 25455, 1919.
66 Reprinted in Selected Addresses and Essays, pp. 4993, London: Murray,
1928. The essay was first published in 1913.
67 See Haldane, R. B. The Higher Nationality: A Study in Law and Ethics,
in Conduct of Life, p. 115, London, Murray.
68 Haldane, R. B. Higher Nationality, pp. 11517.
69 Haldane, R. B. Higher Nationality, p. 135. It should be noted here that
Haldane did give a particular emphasis to what Britain, the dominions
and the USA had in common.
70 Collingwood, R. G. The New Leviathan, revised edition, D. Boucher,
(ed.) Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 217, 219, and 45051, 1992.
71 Bradley, F. H. Limits of International and National Self-Sacrifice, 21.
Ritchie, D. G. Moral Problems of War, p. 494.
72 Hegel, G. W. F. The Philosophy of Mind, translated by W. Wallace and
A. V. Miller, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 547, 1971; Hegel, G. W. F.
Philosophy of Right, 33334.
176

Notes

73 Ritchie, D. G. The Moral Problems of War In reply to Mr

J. M. Robertson, International Journal of Ethics, 11, 495, 19001901.
Reprinted in Collected Works of D. G. Ritchie, Vol. 6.
74 A similar view has been expressed more recently by J. E. S. Fawcett: Law
cannot of itself create order, but emerges only where there is a minimum
degree of order, which it may, however, serve to rationalise and extend.
The Development of International Law in International Relations in
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75 Hegel, G. W. F. Philosophy of Right, 33839.
76 Bosanquet, B. Wisdom of Naamans Servants, p. 309. Also see MacCunn,
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p. 110; and Hetherington H. J. W. and Muirhead, J. H. Social Purpose,
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77 Bosanquet, B. Philosophical Theory of the State, p. l.
78 Bosanquet, B. The Function of the State in Promoting the Unity of
Mankind, p. 298. Cf. Nicholson, Political Philosophy of the British
Idealists, p. 225.
79 Bosanquet, B. Patriotism in the Perfect State, pp. 13640.

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188

Further reading

Collected essays and works

There has been some detailed scholarly republication of the works

of many of the British Idealists over the last two decades. This has
been pioneered by Thoemmes Press, for example, The Collected
Works of F. H. Bradley, C. A. Keene and W. J. Mander (eds), Bristol:
Thoemmes Press, 1999; The Collected Works of T. H. Green, R. L.
Nettleship and Peter Nicholson (eds), Bristol: Thoemmes, 1997; The
Collected Works of Bernard Bosanquet, Will Sweet (ed.), Bristol:
Thoemmes, 1999; The Collected Works of Edward Caird, Colin Tyler
(ed.), Bristol: Thoemmes, 1999, Bosanquet: Essays in Philosophy and
Social Policy 18831922, W. Sweet (ed.). Bristol: Thoemmes, 2003;
Colin Tyler (ed.), Unpublished Manuscripts in British Idealism:
Political Philosophy, Theology and Social Thought, 2 Vols, Bristol:
Thoemmes and Continuum, 2005.
There has also been a series of republications of the major work of
R. G. Collingwood from Oxford University Press. In addition,
Imprint Academic has made major scholarly contributions with several academic series of monographs dedicated to the works of R. G.
Collingwood, Michael Oakeshott and T. H. Green, many of which
have been referred to in this book. There has also been since 1993, a
Collingwood and British Idealist Centre, now located at Cardiff
University, which produces the principal journal in the field
Collingwood and British Idealist Studies: Incorporating Bradley
Studies. More recently, the Centre for the Study of British Idealism
and the New Liberalism has been established by James Connelly and
Colin Tyler. Both centres contribute to the work of the British
Idealism Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association of the
United Kingdom.

189

Further reading

Recent Histories of Idealism

Jeremy Dunham, Iain Hamilton Grant, Sean Watson, Idealism: The

History of a Philosophy, Durham, Acumen, 2011; W. J. Mander, British
Idealism: A History, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011.
Recent general collections

There have been some helpful collections of both essays and biographical information on the British Idealists: D. Boucher, J. Connelly
and T. Modood (eds), Philosophy, Politics and Civilization, Cardiff:
Wales University Press, 1995, W. J. Mander (ed.), Anglo-American
Idealism, Westport Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press,
2000; Corey Able and Timothy Fuller, The Intellectual Legacy of
Michael Oakeshott, Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2005; Maria DimovaCookson and W. J. Mander (eds), T. H. Green: Ethics, Metaphysics
and Political Philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006; Will Sweet
(ed.), Bernard Bosanquet and the Legacy of Idealism, Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2007; Will Sweet (ed.), The Moral,
Social and Political Philosophy of the British Idealists, Exeter: Imprint
Academic, 2009; Will Sweet (ed.), Biographical Encyclopaedia of
British Idealism, London: Continuum, 2010; J. Connelly and S.
Panagakou (eds), Anglo-American Idealism: Thinkers and Ideas
Oxford: Peter Laing, 2010.
Metaphysics and Religion

Metaphysical, logical, epistemological and religious studies have

played a significant part in recent works on the British Idealists.
F. H. Bradley is often a subject of these works: Peter Robbins, The
British Hegelians 18751925, New York and London: Garland, 1982;
A. Manser, Bradleys Logic, Oxford: Blackwell, 1983; A. Manser and
G. Stock (eds). The Philosophy of F. H. Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1984; J. Patrick, The Magdalene Metaphysicals: Idealism and
Orthodoxy in Oxford, Macon: Mercer University Press, 1985; Don
McNiven, Bradleys Moral Psychology, Lewiston: Edwin Mellen,
1987; P. Hyllton, Russell, Idealism and the Emergence of Analytic
Philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990; T. L. S. Sprigge, James
and Bradley: American Truth and British Reality, Chicago and La
Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1993; W. J. Mander, An Introduction to
190

Further reading

Bradleys Metaphysics, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994; A. P.F . Sell,

Philosophical Idealism and Christian Belief, Cardiff: University of
Wales Press, 1995; Steven Anthony Gerencser, The Skeptics
Oakeshott, London: Macmillan, 2000. Terry Nardin, The Philosophy
of Oakeshott, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press, 2001; Paul
Franco, Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2004; Stewart Candlish, The Russell/ Bradley Dispute
and its Significance for Twentieth Century Philosophy, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; Olaf Bengtsson, The Worldview of
Personalism: Origins and Early Development, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006.
Ethics

Ethics has received some attention, although it appears along with

politics: G. Thomas, The Moral Philosophy of T. H. Green, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1987; Maria Dimova-Cookson, T. H. Greens Moral
and Political Philosophy: A Phenomenological Perspective,
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001; David O. Brink, Perfectionism
and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of T. H. Green,
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2003; Will Sweet (ed.), The Moral, Social
and Political Philosophy of the British Idealists, Exeter: Imprint
Academic, 2009.
Politics

The political philosophy of the British Idealists has been one of the
more busy areas of scholarly study, often combined with ethics.
Some works on the Idealists are more concerned to situate them in
specific ideological and historical context, others focus much more
directly on the philosophical arguments: A. J. M. Milne, The Social
Philosophy of English Idealism, London: Allen and Unwin, 1962;
W. H. Greenleaf, The British Political Tradition: The Ideological
Heritage, Vol. II, London: Methuen, 1983; Andrew Vincent and
Raymond Plant, Philosophy Politics and Citizenship, The Life and
Thought of the British Idealists, Oxford, Blackwell, 1984. Michael
Freeden, The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform, Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1986; I. M. Greengarten, Thomas Hill Green and
the Development of Liberal-Democratic Thought, Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1987; David Boucher, The Social and Political
191

Further reading

Thought of R. G. Collingwood, Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1989; David Boucher and Andrew Vincent, A Radical Hegelian:
the Social and Political Thought of Henry Jones: Cardiff, University
of Wales Press, 1991; S. M. Den Otter, British Idealism and Social
Explanation: A Study in Late Victorian Thought, Oxford; Clarendon
Press, 1996; Will Sweet, Idealism and Rights: The Social Ontology of
Human Rights in the Political Thought of Bernard Bosanquet, Lanham
MD: University of America Press, 1997; David Boucher and Andrew
Vincent, British Idealism and Political Theory, Edinburgh University
Press, 2000; James Connelly, Metaphysics, Method and Politics,
Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2003; Colin Tyler, Idealist Political
Philosophy: Pluralism and conflict in the absolute idealist tradition,
London: Continuum, 2006, David Weinstein, Utilitarianism and the
New Liberalism, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007; Richard Murphy,
Collingwood and the Crisis of Western Civilisation, Exeter: Imprint
Academic, 2008; Stamatoula Panagakou also edited a special edition
of The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 7
(2005), devoted to the British Idealists.

192

Index

absolute idealism 1, 1213, 1617, 18,

3848, 5775
absolute presupposition 49
analytic tradition 52, 534
Aristotle 18, 30
art 667, 71
Asquith, H. H. 127, 139
Austin, John 812, 152
Ayer, Alfred Jules 2, 40, 52
Baillie, J. B. 14, 22
Ball, S. 103, 105
Baur, F. C. 9
Bentham, Jeremy 4, 314, 35, 78
Berkeley, Bishop 1, 11, 1213
Beveridge, William 103, 117
biblical criticism 15
Birkbeck College 113
Blanshard, Brand 43
Boer War (18991902) 136, 13846
Bosanquet, Bernard 7, 17, 1617, 42,
434, 47, 49, 58, 63, 76, 77, 79,
845, 87, 89, 90, 100, 11819, 120,
123, 129, 131, 1323, 135, 136, 137,
144, 149, 150
Boyce Gibson, W. R. 43, 47, 54
Bradley, A.C. 150
Bradley, F. H. 7, 10, 1516, 32, 35,
40, 41, 434, 467, 54, 55, 57, 58,
60, 67, 68, 76, 834, 87, 89, 90, 99,
149, 150
Brown, Thomas 11
Burke, Edmund 301, 145

Caird, Edward 7 , 9, 10, 14, 15,

19, 44, 48, 49, 60, 98, 105,
132, 136, 137, 141, 144, 1467,
149, 151
Cambridge realists 504
Campbell Fraser,
Alexander 12, 13
Carlyle, Thomas 8, 9, 10, 11, 14
Carnap, R. 51
Chamberlain, Joseph 139, 144
Charity Organization Society 17,
11819, 1201
Churchill, Winston 127
citizenship 97101, 10910, 122,
125, 136
class 10810
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 8, 15
colligating hypothesis 4950
Collingwood, R.G. 2, 18, 20, 40, 41,
49, 53, 58, 60, 61, 627, 705, 79,
856, 150, 157
common good 3, 8794, 122, 125,
1367
common sense 51
compulsion 789, 835, 1367
Comte, A. 14
consequentialism 4
conservatism of 30
Cook Wilson, John 2
cosmopolitanism 147, 150, 151
Croce, Benedetto 17, 18, 62, 63, 64,
65, 70
customary law 151
193

Index

Darwin, Charles 212, 234, 26, 148

Dawkins, Richard 24
Dilthey, W. 50
disobedience 80
dualism 12, 278

Hamilton, William 11, 12

Hastie, William 14
Hegel, G. W. F. 9, 10, 1120, 26, 28,
35, 36, 42, 47, 49, 57, 62, 75, 83,
878, 89, 110, 123, 130, 131, 132,
149
Hershel, John F. W. 21
Hetherington, Hector 134, 135, 136,
1378, 144
historical criticism 15, 19
historical method 39
history 39, 723
Hobbes, Thomas 4, 4950, 812,
945, 152
Hobhouse, L. T. 42, 43, 80, 103,
1256, 127, 132, 1334, 140, 141,
142, 145
Hobson, J. A. 80, 1334, 140, 145
Hofstadter, Richard 25
Hooker, Joseph 23
Hume, David 4, 10, 12, 15
Husserl, Edmund 17
Hutchinson Stirling, James 1314
Huxley, T. H. 26, 147, 149

education 11014
emotivism 4
empiricism 10, 33, 389
epistemology 323
ethical societies 17, 11314
ethics 19, 278, 8794, 152
Eucken, R. 47
evolution 2, 7, 209, 14759
experience 401
Fabians 105, 138, 141
family casework 120
Fergusson, Adam 11
Ferrier, Frederick James 9, 10,
1112, 19
Fichte, J. G. 9, 10, 36
First World War (191418) 423
Flint, Robert 14
Fourier, Charles 104, 105
freedom (see liberty)

idealism
common good 33, 8794, 122, 125,
1367
conception of philosophy 4850
critique of utilitarianism 2, 3, 4, 10,
2935, 39, 924
dualism 278
education 3, 11014
experience and 41
historical criticism 15, 19, 35, 39,
723
language of 56
liberalism 3, 978, 1068, 123
metaphysics of 3875
modality 412
morality 3, 19, 278, 8794, 152
naive caricature of 48
optimism of 5

Gentile, G. 1718, 57, 625, 67, 70, 110

German militarism 42
German philosophy 7, 8
Green, T. H. 7, 9, 10, 15, 29, 31, 40,
42, 76, 77, 79, 80, 8096, 100,
104, 107, 108, 112, 11519, 1213,
1238, 131, 135, 136, 137, 140,
143, 149
Grey, Edward 139
Grote, John 1819
Grotius, Hugo 152
Haldane, Elizabeth 14
Haldane, Richard Burdon 9, 10, 45,
103, 108, 11214, 128, 137, 139,
141, 144, 145, 150, 151
194

Index

parts and wholes 289

political philosophy of 76101
realism 1, 13, 39, 40, 4855
self-realization 3, 434, 125
theory and practice 42, 8790, 989,
10229
unity of nature and spirit 289
war 5, 1304
imperialism 13846
Independent Labour Party 105
individualism 43, 44, 45, 878,
97101,11920
inequality 93
international relations 13054
Joachim, Harold 17, 53
Jones, Henry 7, 1415, 16, 17, 1920,
38, 42, 47, 50, 57, 5860, 79, 98,
103, 114, 119, 1245, 1345, 137,
141, 143, 144, 145
Jowett, Benjamin 15, 112
Kant, I. 8, 9, 10, 1120, 323, 36, 46,
83, 90, 122
Keynes, John Maynard 51, 117
Kidd, B. 141, 147
Kuhn, Thomas 26
Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste 22, 25
Laski, Harold 80
League of Nations 133, 1534
liberal imperialism 139, 143
liberalism 79, 80, 978, 1068, 123
liberty 1268
Lloyd George, David 140
Locke, John 10, 12
logic 2, 15, 1617, 512, 53
logic of question and answer 2
logical positivists 523
London School of Economics and
Political Science 113
Lotze, Herman 9, 16, 36, 53
Lyell, Sir Charles 22

MacCunn, S. 145, 150

MacDonald, Ramsay 109
Mackenzie, J. S. 19, 105, 150
Marxism 1045
McTaggart, J. M. E. 19, 47, 48, 54, 55, 76
Mill, J. S. 12, 15, 31, 35, 78, 105, 136
Mitchell, William 114
modality 412
modes of experience 412
monism 39, 5775
Moore, G. E. 2, 50, 51, 54
morality (see ethics)
Muirhead, J. H. 9, 16, 79, 11516, 133,
135, 136, 1378, 1412, 1434, 145
Murdoch, Iris 30
nationalism 45, 1348
naturalism 7, 209, 48, 904
natural selection 23, 25
natural theology 24
neo-Kantianism 4
new liberalism 103, 1068, 11617,
1258, 13841
Nicholson, Peter 131
Oakeshott, Michael 1, 2, 1718, 20, 40,
41, 43, 44, 50, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58,
61, 6871, 725, 76, 79, 89, 929,
11112
obligation 857
ontological unity 445
Owen, Robert 104
Paley, William 24
parts and wholes 3842
patriotism (see nationalism)
Personal Idealism 1, 1213, 428
personalists and absolutists 428
Plato 9, 10, 15
poetry 3, 712
political philosophy 76101
Poor Law Reports (1909) 119
positivism 39
195

Index

poverty 11419
pragmatism 57
property 1236

spiritual realism 12
state 7781, 1023,
11419, 1223
Stebbing, Susan 50
Stephen, Leslie 34, 35
Stewart, Dugald 11
Sturt, Henry 43, 46, 47

Rashdall, Hastings 76
Rawls, John 80
realism 1, 13, 39, 40, 48, 505
recognition 946
Reid, Thomas 10, 11
rights 27, 946
Ritchie, D. G. 17, 21, 256, 31, 33,
76, 77, 80, 96, 98, 105, 116, 119,
132, 135, 136, 141, 142, 143, 146,
147, 151
Rorty, Richard 6
Rousseau, J. J. 83
Royce, Josiah 47
Russell, Bertrand 2, 4, 51, 52, 545

Tawney, R. H. 103
theory and practice 42, 8790, 989,
10229
Toynbee, Arnold 1034, 120, 124
truth 3940, 412
University Extension
Movement 11214
University
settlements 103, 11314
utilitarianism 2, 3, 4, 10, 2935, 39,
924

Samuel, Herbert 127

Schelling, F. W. J. 9, 10, 36
Schlick, M. 52
Scottish common sense philosophy 8, 9,
10, 11, 12
Secret of Hegel 1314
self-realization 434, 125
Seth Pringle Pattison, Andrew 9, 10,
43, 45, 46, 49, 76
Shaw, George Bernard 141
Sidgwick, Henry 30, 32, 78, 90, 97
Sittlichkeit 16, 123, 151
Smith, J. A. 1718
social and non-social 86
social imperialism 5, 133, 139
Sorley, W. R. 19, 23, 150
Spencer, Herbert 10, 12, 15, 22, 25, 29,
34, 35, 778, 98, 148

Vico, G. 14
Vienna Circle 512
Wallace, Alfred Russel 23, 147, 149
Wallace, William 14
war 1304
Webb, Sidney and Beatrice 105, 113,
119, 121, 141
Whewell, William 21
Whitehead, Alfred North 54
Williams, Bernard 29
Wittgenstein, Ludwig 2, 4, 21, 51, 52,
534
Wolff, F. C. 10
Woolf, Leonard 141

196